


Love and Science

by Stuff_da_Ranger



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season 05
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24392356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stuff_da_Ranger/pseuds/Stuff_da_Ranger
Summary: What did it mean to be lab partners?What does it mean to be together?After the battle against Horde Prime, Hordak and Entrapta start a new life. One full of new experiences, love and science.Slowly and carefully, they build their lives by each other's side.They don't know it yet, but their feelings go way beyond what they imagine.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 220





	1. I Miss You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> This is my first She-Ra fanfiction and I hope you like it.  
> I have been into this ship since Season 3 and after what happened in Season 5 I couldn't help myself, but write something about them.  
> When I found out one of the crew members ships them I was so... I don't know, happy? Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Day 27 since Hordak left with WH to help their brothers. I find myself asking rather I should or should not call Hordak."  
> After the battle against Horde Prime, Entrapta misses her lab partner more than she thought she would.

A month after defeating Horde Prime, Entrapta decides to tell the others she is going back to Dryl. They are all at what used to be Shadow Weaver's garden, just having a nice time when she brings up the subject.

"Are you sure?" Catra is the first one to ask. She didn't think the Geek Princess would stay around long. There aren't much things on Bright Moon that she hasn't searched about yet, making the place a bit boring to the geek one, but a month was a really short period of time in Catra's opinion, considering what they all have been through.

"You can stay here as long as you want." Glimmer assures her. She wasn't expecting Entrapta to leave now. They were having so much fun together that Glimmer even started to like Entrapta's bots in the meantime. They have all really bonded over the month. It is hard to see someone leaving.

"You don't have to leave now." Bow smiles at her. "There are still lots of things about the Horde technology that we haven't discussed yet."

"I have been away from my kingdom long enough. They... need me there." Entrapta looks at Bow. "You can go to the Crypto Castle at any time since all my tech is there and we can always video chat." She looks at the tablet on her hand. "It is finally time for me to start caring for the people of my kingdom. I think I am good enough at the people subject to help them now." Entrapta smile at the others.

"You sure improved your knowledge on people, Geek Princess." Mermista gives Entrapta a soft smile. "I think your people will be happy to have you back."

"I hope so." She has a few tears in the corners of her eyes, but those are happy ones.

"I am gonna miss you." Scorpia runs towards Entrapta and hugs her. "You can show up at the Fright Zone at any time you want. I will make sure there is a room just for you inside the castle they are rebuilding."

Scorpia finally got her kingdom back and she decided to change it for good. The first thing she has chosen to do is having her family's castle rebuilt and, after, getting rid of all that dark Horde's constructions. They are having plants and trees planted all over the Fright Zone. Soon it would be hard to recognize it as the Fright Zone. Scorpia asked Perfuma for help on that subject and she happily agreed to plant all sorts of things there.

"Thanks, Scorpia." Entrapta smiles. "I will be sure to make you a map of the Crypto Castle then." 

"That would be really appreciated." Scorpia puts Entrapta back on the ground and places one of her pincers on the scientist's shoulder. "Thank you."

"I will start packing my things today..." Entrapta looks at the Bright Moon castle. "It will take a while to find all my bots around the castle... luckily Emily can help me with that." 

"One is with me." Mermista raises her hand. "Sophia prepares really good bubble baths." She tells Sea Hawk, who is sit next to her.

"So that is where Sophia went. I thought she was out, helping the people of Bright Moon." Entrapta scratches the back of her head. "You can keep her, if you want to." She smiles. "She seems to like you." The princess of Dryl looks at her tablet, searching for the list containing all her bots' names and functions. "I do care about all robots I come in touch with. It is hard for me to leave them behind, but I'd rather see them helping someone else then just walking around without nothing else to do." She looks at Mermista. "Take good care of Sophia." 

"Ughh... fine." Mermista makes it sound like it bothers her, but she gives a smile to the princess of Dryl at the end. 

Entrapta learned lots of things about the princesses during the time she stayed with them. After lots of social experiments she had the opportunity to watch, Entrapta learned that this is the way Mermista shows she cares.

"Once you are ready, I can teleport you there." Glimmer smiles at Entrapta. "You and your bots." She giggles.

"Thank you." Entrapta gives a soft smile back to the queen. "It will be a big help." 

"Entrapta..." Catra stares at her for a moment, looking for words to say. She thinks of hundreds of things to tell Entrapta, but she can just say one. "Just... don't blow up your castle, okay?" She gives the princess a gentle smile.

"I will try." The scientist laughs. "I will miss spending all this time together with you guys."

"We will miss you too, Entrapta." Perfuma stands up from the ground. "Remember to stay in touch with your non-robot friends, ok?"

"I will." The geek princess waves at them, however, before she can start her way out, everyone runs towards her for a group hug, making Entrapta really happy. "Thanks... for caring about me." She tells everyone while the happy tears she has been holding back finally fall down on her cheek.

For Entrapta, it is a relief to know that her friends really care about her. The princess of Dryl is finally sure that they are all her friends, she can tell that even without her data. The geek princess will never have to question herself about that again.

After everyone let go of the hug, Adora walks towards Entrapta and asks to talk to her, alone. The scientist doesn't understand why they had to walk away from the others to talk, so, she asks Adora about it.

"What is it that you can't say around the others?" She asks with curiosity. Entrapta learned from experience that when a person wants to tell you something others can't know, they ask to have a conversation with you in private, just like this one.

"I want to ask about... humm... Hordak." Adora looks at the princess with a concerned look. 

Adora knows Entrapta and Hordak are close, but she hasn't seen him around lately, making Adora worry about his whereabouts. She knows he has been talking to the other clones and the last thing She-ra needs is Hordak trying to get in the shoes of Horde Prime. 

"Oh... Hordak..." Entrapta takes a longer breath. "What about him?" She asks, a bit unhappy to talk about her friend.

"I just want to know about his whereabouts." Adora tries not to make it sound like a big deal. However, she doesn't notice the change in Entrapta's posture, making Adora say things she probably shouldn't. "I know you are close and that he is your friend, but, due to his past, we need to know what he has been up to lately. I thought asking you would be a better approach, since you are always working together and all that..."

"He has been working with W.H., Wrong Hordak as you know him. They are teaching all their 'brothers' about being their own selves." Entrapta thinks it is a good thing Hordak and W.H. are doing, but why doesn't she sound happy when telling Adora about it? "He hasn't been around Bright Moon because he is too busy looking for the clones that got themselves lost around Etheria after the hive mind was destroyed." 

"Good to know." Adora has a big smile on her face. _**He is just on a trip, nothing to worry about then**_ , she thinks. "After you are back on Dryl, can you send us... hum... a monthly report? I know it sounds weird, but it is just to be sure things are ok." 

"Sure." Entrapta looks at the sky, wondering about all the wonders beyond the atmosphere. "But, just if you promise to take me with you once you go out there again." She has sparkly eyes while talking about the possibility of going back to space, what makes it hard for Adora to deny that wish from her.

"I promise you will be with us next time we decide to go back to space. Besides, you know Darla better than anyone else." Adora gives Entrapta a friendly smile. "I also want you to know that I am thankful for all your help."

"Thank you, Adora." Entrapta smiles back at her. "For everything you did." 

Those words are their goodbye. After a few seconds in silence, Adora places a hand on the scientist's shoulder before leaving to join the others back at the garden.

Entrapta then goes inside the castle, towards the room where she has been settled in the past month. Once she enters the room, she spots her tape recorder on the bed. Entrapta keeps thinking about her conversation with Adora and decides to pick the tape recorder up with her hair and click it on.

"Ethical dilemma number seventy-two..." Entrapta walks towards the big window of her room. "Day 27 since Hordak left with W.H. to help their brothers. I find myself asking if I should or should not call Hordak. He is probably really busy helping the clones... I could be interrupting him at a really important time and I know how inconvenient that can be." She sighs, a little bit bored. "But I wouldn't have this dilemma in the first place if he just showed up from time to time or let me go with him the first time I asked. I know Hordak said this was something he had to do without me and I respect his decision. However, we spent so much time apart and now he is out there, far away from this place... I thought we would be lab partners again once we reunited." She looks at her tape recorder. "I think this became an emotional dilemma after all." She clicks the tape recorder off and uses her hair to sit in front of the window.

She looks at Etheria and then at her kingdom's direction, wondering about how things are going to be once she is back there. It doesn't take much time for Emily to show up next to her, making noises.

"Hi, Emily." She places her free pigtail on the top of the bot. "I know it is not like me to do nothing and look at the landscape." The scientist smiles at the robot. "But I am at an emotional dilemma right now. Can you help me with that?"

Emily just answers her with noises and shakes of disagreement. 

"Well, I think I will have to figure it out on my own then." Entrapta jumps towards the bed. "You know, Emily... since I joined the princesses' alliance things have been so confusing... so different. I met them and then Hordak, Scopia and Catra... Much more social interactions than I ever thought it was possible for me. I even had to make a chart." She looks at the bot. "Now I have true friends." She looks at the ceiling. "They helped me and I helped them." The scientist takes a deep breath.

"The problem is that I have a whole universe to explore out there and still so many data about the First Ones to collect here on Etheria. However, instead of being out there, searching, I am here, not searching..." Entrapta closes her eyes, frustrated. "I just... don't understand why... it's not like I don't want to do science. I love science!" She rolls around the bed. "It's so confusing, Emily!" She shakes her legs back and forth and then grabs the tape recorder to click it on. "I came to the conclusion that I need to call Hordak and tell him what I, um, feel." She then grabs her tablet and calls him. It takes a couple of minutes, but he finally picks it up. Not him exactly, after the static is under control she can see the face of W.H.

"Hello, sister!" W.H. waves at her. "I mean, Entrapta."

"Hi, W.H." She waves back. "Is Hordak around?"

"Just a second." W.H. looks around for a couple of seconds. "There he is." He points at somewhere Entrapta is not able to see through the screen. "He is talking to one of our brothers. We just found him in this place... how do you call it?" He looks at the amount of sand around him. "Ah, the Crimson Waste!" 

"Can you call him for me?" Entrapta asks a little bit happy to, at least, have some information of where they are.

"Sure." W.H. nods in agreement. "Hey, brother!" He shouts and waves towards Hordak.

"Yes?" Entrapta hears Hordak's voice, he sounds a little bit annoyed. "What is it?"

"Entrapta wants to communicate with you." W.H. walks towards his older brother and gives him the device. 

"Entrapta." Hordak smiles at her, sounding way happier than earlier.

"Hello, Hordak." She smiles back at him. "Just calling for an update on your mission. Are your brothers giving you a hard time?"

"You can't even imagine. It didn't come to my mind that they would be so difficult to handle. I am still not used to the existential crisis they all go through." He takes a deep breath. "But the mission has been a success. According to my numbers we will soon be over with it." He says, proud of himself.

"That is good to hear." She nods in agreement and then stays in silence for a moment.

"Is that all?" He raises a brow, thinking it is weird for Entrapta to be so quiet. "Aren't you going to update me on your day?" He encourages her to talk.

"Right..." Entrapta takes longer breath. "Today I told everyone I am going back to Dryl." She looks away from her tablet for a second, but then she focuses back on Hordak. "To take care of my people."

"That is appropriate. You are a princess, after all." Hordak tells her with a smile, trying to show that he supports the princess on her decision.

"I said goodbye to everyone and told Scorpia that I am making a map of the Crypto Castle for her. Promised Catra I would try not blow up my castle and invited Bow to visit at any time he wants to talk about tech." She tells Hordak, but he doesn't seem so happy about that last sentence.

"The Archery Boy seems to know something about technology." Hordak shrugs.

"Hordak..." Entrapta sounds nervous, but she doesn't understand why. "Do you know what you are doing after finding your lost brothers?"

He stops to think about the question for a few seconds before answering her. "I haven't given the proper thought to it yet."

That was a lie, Hordak has thought about it for some time now. He wants to be with her, of course. He thinks they have been separated long enough, but he can't just force his will on her. He doesn't want to force Entrapta to stay around him.

"Hmm..." Entrapta sounds upset when he answers her. She thought Hordak would give her a proper and solid answer. This way she wouldn't have to say what she wants from him.

"Have you been working on any new projects lately?" Hordak tries to change the subject, noticing the change in her mood.

"No." She says, embarrassed. 

_**That isn't like her,**_ he thinks, worried about Entrapta.

"Nothing since the new robots." Entrapta sends him a chart of her bots. "They are functioning as they should be." She shrugs. "I have been distracted lately. There is a thing getting in the way of my scientific thoughts." She looks away, trying to keep her mask on her head and not drag it down on her face.

"Then get rid of it. Anything getting in the way of your experiments has to be exterminated." Hordak says with conviction. Little did he know he is the thing getting between her and her science, making Entrapta, unintentionally, give him an annoyed face.

"What is it?" He asks, confused.

"I am in a emotional dilemma." Entrapta shows him her tape recorder. She knows she can't bring herself to tell him what she wants, but she still can make him listen. She clicks the tape recorder and plays her last dilemma. Hordak carefully listens to every word until the record ends.

Hordak sure is speechless because he opens and closes his mouth for a couple of times after the record ends. He takes a deep breath before looking directly at her magenta eyes.

"Entrapta... I..." Hordak shakes his head, trying to put his thoughts together. "I apologize." He scratches the back of his head. "I didn't know my absence would bother you."

"It doesn't bother me. I just wished we had more time to talk. You just spent three days here and then left to your mission. I know being around the princesses is hard to you, but you didn't come back, not even once. I even thought that, maybe, you didn't want to be my lab partner anymore." She sighs. "I know we are still friends, but what we had before was special to me. It made me... happy."

"It made me happy too." He desperately says, wanting to make that clear. "Being around you changed me... and I appreciated that." He scratches the back of his head again, a thing he noticed he tends to do when trying to express his feelings. "I just thought the sooner I left, the sooner I would go back..." He blushes a little, but still tries to look serious. "To your side."

"Hordak... I didn't realize-" The princess has a mix of surprise and forgiveness showing on her face.

"It is not your fault." He stops her before she apologizes for something she didn't do. "I should have told you. Now I acknowledge that the way I left seemed like I was leaving you behind." He gives her a kind smile. "However, I would never make such a mistake. Not again." He touches the "luvd" crystal, which is now a necklace Entrapta made for him. 

During the time Hordak stayed with Horde Prime, his body was healed completely, so he had no need of a new armour. However, Entrapta insisted that he should keep the crystal close to him at all times. Of course he understood what she meant. That crystal means a lot to both of them. More than words can describe. 

"It wasn't your fault back then. Catra-" Entrapta tries to explain, without showing any negative emotions towards the subject, but Hordak interrupts her before she can say anything else.

"I should have had more trust in you." He gives her a painful look. "I should have known better than to trust Catra." 

"Hordak..." Entrapta touches her tablet, trying to feel closer to him. "I forgave her." She gives him a comforting smile.

"I still don't understand how you were capable of such a thing." He sighs.

"I observed that I have a tendency to 'look at the bright side' as people say." Entrapta shrugs. "But, besides that, everyone deserves a second chance. Like you and me..." She gives him a gentle smile. "We did bad things in the past, but, now, we have got a second chance to redeem ourselves and be good."

Those were the last words she spoke before a long moment of silence fell between them. It wasn't awkward, but it still bothered Entrapta. They are talking, but something feels off in her opinion. It's like they are running around the real subject. Intentionally or not. 

"Hordak." Entrapta calls him out of his thoughts.

"Y-yes?" Hordak shakes his head. Just like Entrapta, he noticed they were not talking about what they really wanted to. 

In his case, it is because he doesn't want to impose himself, however, he wonders what she wants to talk about, besides all the other subjects they have discussed already.

"Would you consider to..." Entrapta plays with her hair. "Humm..." She looks at Emily, who decided to stay put next to her. "Stay with me... In the Crypto Castle?" She looks back at him, expecting an answer, however, Hordak is now paralyzed, making Entrapta wonder if she should have waited longer to ask him about it. 

"I will totally understand if you want to stay somewhere else." Entrapta tries to fix the awkward situation she created. In order to do that, she decides to look at her data, just to have a better panorama to proceed with the conversation. _**Data never lies**_ , she thinks. "You just got your free will back and now you don't need to follow a path built on the hope of one day being accepted by the tyrant you once believed as flawless and eternal-" Entrapta stops herself, placing a lock of her hair on her mouth. "I mean..." She gives him an embarrassed smile. "Now that everything is different, we don't have to be together all the time. However, I would appreciate if you considered the possibility."

"Entrapta." Hordak is still shaken by that ask, but he wants to give a proper answer to the princess. "I appreciate the offer and I accept it." He sounds a little bit lost. Everything sounded a lot better inside his head.

"Really?" The princess has a smile of relief on her face.

"Yes." Hordak gives a sincere smile back to her. "And, regarding my absence, I am going to make plans to visit you soon."

"Thank you, Hordak." She says, full of happiness. "In the meantime, I will start making plans for your new sanctum." 

"Our." He corrects her, blushing a bit while doing it. He is way out of his comfort zone. Friendship and interpersonal relationships as a whole are new concepts to him. Actually, to both of them. Even though Entrapta had a few more experiences on the friendship field than him, she is no expert on that subject either.

"What?" She gives him a confused look.

"Our sanctum." He touches the crystal again, trying to feel closer to her.

"Oh... right." She giggles. "Even though I will keep calling it a lab." 

"Do as you please." He smiles, genuinely. He is relieved that his relationship with Entrapta has improved this much over the days.

"This means I will need to make you a map too." She places one lock of hair against her chin. "And one for W.H."

"Is he accompanying us?" Hordak asks, confused. That is an unforeseen turn of events.

"I am responsible for him. So, for as long as he needs, he will be staying with me. I already told him that." Entrapta looks at Emily, having a brilliant idea. "Emily can be his guide!" She says, amazed. "And your other brothers can live on Dryl too. They won't be able to stay inside the castle, but there are lots of other places they can stay. Like the villages down the mountain. Or maybe we could build them their own village." She starts making notes on another tablet. "I have so much to do now!" She throws her hand in the air, thrilled.

Hordak watches her while she talks about her plans for the sanctum and the castle, making him happy. Watching Entrapta work was always fascinating to him and seeing her better than earlier is also a relief. 

"I look forward to work by your side again." He interrupts her one last time, getting Entrapta out of her thoughts.

"I miss you too." She looks at his eyes, which are now red again. "I need to go now." She tells him, reluctantly. "See you soon?" 

"Can I call you once the sun goes down?" He asks, wishing to be by her side at that exact moment.

"Of course." Entrapta smiles one last time to him before hanging up.

"Emotional dilemma solved." She tells Emily before starting to pack her things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Sorry for typos or grammar mistakes.  
> See you in the next chapter!


	2. It Is A Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Come on, Emily. I know where I am going. There is nothing on Beast Island that can seriously hurt me."
> 
> Entrapta returns to Beast Island, but little does she know who went to visit her on Dryl that very same day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is way bigger than the other, but I really had a lot I wanted to tell.  
> I found out that I love writing Entrapta and Hordak, specially when they are in the same room together.  
> I hope you like it!

It is early in the morning when Entrapta walks towards the ballroom to check up on her old bots. She thought about tinkering with them the day she got back to Dryl, however, she had so many other things to do before being able to work on them again that it had to wait until that morning. Getting Dryl back in order was one of the priorities. 

After being conquered by the Horde, her castle got all messed up, so, she had to organize it once she returned. The only place no one got in was her lab because of the security system and the password that only she knew. Now Hordak knows it too, in case any of her experiments go wrong and someone, besides Emily, needs to find her inside that specific room.

One other thing Entrapta had to do was visit the Fright Zone, in order to retrieve the things she left there and some of Hordak's stuff too. It took her two days to finish that task. One day to gather the things and another to transport it all. Gladly Scorpia helped to find everything and Glimmer assisted with the teleportation thing or else she would still be working on that.

Next step on her list now is to make the Crypto Castle and Dryl running again like it once did, reason why she needs all of her bots functioning again. They all seemed a little bit rusty, but after the adjustments and improvements Entrapta made, they looked as good as new.

Later that morning the princess also asked her staff to work for her again. They seemed a little bit reluctant to show up at first, but she kind of understood why they didn’t want to appear. Everyone spent a considerable amount of time thinking she was dead and then, once they heard she was still alive, the Horde took over Dryl and they had to move to Bright Moon. The princess never reached out to her people or explained why she was working with the Horde. So, from her perspective, they probably thought she went evil. 

The geek princess actually saw her staff around Bright Moon once the fight against Horde Prime was over, however, she didn’t find them a few days later, assuming they returned to Dryl. The scientist was so excited to tell Hordak about all the things he missed that she didn’t even share a word with her own people back then. 

Now that she thinks of it, she probably should have talked to them, at least said 'hi'. That would have made their meeting in the morning a lot easier since Entrapta was never the type of princess who got in front of people and started telling them how things should work.

When Baker, Soda Pop and Busgirl first came to work in the castle, she just told them she likes tiny food, fizzy drinks and that she needed someone to keep the place from falling apart because she is always working on a project and doesn’t exactly have the time to take care of the castle herself. She even built robots to help keeping the place organized. 

Entrapta sincerely thought they were helpful.

Later she found out that she was the only one who found the bots helpful. The others didn’t like them very much. The trio even asked her if they could not work with the robots again and that is how she learned about all the issues her staff had. Not just regarding her bots, but regarding everything else that made their work fifty percent harder. 

The labyrinth that is her castle was one of the other problems. Entrapta suggested them to deliver food themselves, but Baker said they couldn’t find her lab, not even using the map she gave them after the incident with the virus. Busgirl even told Entrapta that Soda Pop got lost once and they were not able to find him until the next morning. 

During their conversation Entrapta kept writing down notes on a tablet while making sounds so they knew she was listening, something she learned she should do when not looking at the people who are talking to her. Judging from her past experiments, they felt more comfortable when she did that.

In the end of it all, Entrapta told her staff she would look for a way to comply with their requests. The princess asked the trio if they could work with the robots for some time until she found a solution. The three talked between them for a couple of minutes and unhappily agreed to it. 

Entrapta was not able to come to a definitive conclusion to the reason why they sounded not happy, but her data showed their negative responses were probably due to the fact that she didn’t come up with an immediate solution to their problems... All her social experiments really come in handy at times like this.

Once their conversation is over, Entrapta returns to her lab and starts to write down ways she can fix her staff's problems. At least ten viable ideas cross her mind, but only one checks the interesting and exciting box at the same time. 

"A teleportation device seems to be right. It would allow them to teleport things around the castle without needing a map or the help of a bot." A dangerous glow shows up on those magenta eyes. "They can teleport themselves around the castle! Around Etheria!" She shouts to no one in particular. "I have never built such a device myself, however, after being exposed to one, I can tell how it works. It is very much like a portal machine." She uses her hair to walk around the lab. "If I can put my hands on some First One's tech, I can definitely build one!" She claps her hands together. "Perfect plan, right Emily?" She looks at the robot standing next to her, who desperately beeps in response. Emily initially tries to stop Entrapta from leaving the castle, but the robot eventually gives up and just accompanies the princess to her destination.

"Come on, Emily. I know where I am going. There is nothing on Beast Island that can seriously hurt me." Entrapta looks at her tracker pad with a frown and then takes a deep breath. "But I think it won’t be easy to go there again. I mean..." She looks at the bot. "Last time I was there things were... a bit out of hand." She touches her hair, unintentionally, making Emily do some noises that Entrapta seems to understand the meaning. "It is an involuntary response to my memories. Good things happened back then. We got out of Despondos and they found me. But... there were a lot of bad stuff too." The way she almost stayed and died in the island was not the best thing that happened that day. Horde Prime showed up, the Heart of Etheria had to be stopped by She-ra, breaking her sword in the process, Hordak was abducted... So many events that she can't even keep track of them.

"I should probably tell Hordak about my trip later." She jumps on the top of Emily and uses her to walk towards one of the Horde’s old hovercrafts that were left on her domains. "There is so much about teleportation that I want to ask him!" She jumps on the vehicle and starts to turn the whole thing on. "Remind me later to boost up this machine, Emily. I can make this baby go twice as faster." She presses a button, putting the floating vehicle on autopilot, one of her own additions to the hovercrafts from back when she was working with the Horde. Emily is the one who opens the gate for them to leave the castle, something Entrapta added to the bot’s system once they got back to her home. Emily now has access to all doors inside the castle, even to Entrapta’s lab. 

"There are a few creatures on the island that I became friends with, Emily." The princess places a lock of hair on the top of Emily. "I am sure you will get along." She giggles. "However... there might be some monstrosities that will try to attack us." She gives the bot a nervous glance, making Emily do sound like she is freaking out. "There is no need to worry!" She gently pats the bot. "We won't stay long enough to be affected by the island's signal... I believe. I don't know how strong the signal is now that magic is free and the heart no longer exists. Last time it took some time to affect me and it didn't affect Micah until he got closer to the center." She places a finger on her chin. "Judging from past experiences I shouldn't go all by myself." She murmurs and Emily answers with angry noises. "I know you are someone very capable at many tasks, Emily." She gives a reassuring smile to her robot friend. "But I meant someone who could carry me out and fight the monstrosities inside the island if needed. Like what She-ra did last time." She takes a step away from the bot. 

"However... no one I know would want to come along. The princesses would definitely tell me not to go back there, my staff doesn't like technology very much, Catra thinks it is a bad place, since she sent me there to be disposed of…” Just the thought of that day makes Entrapta’s whole body shiver. “The only one who would go with me, still very cautiously, would be Hordak. I told him about what there is exactly inside the island and he seemed interested." The technician sighs. "But I can't interrupt his mission because of tech." The princess sits on the left border of the vehicle, crossing her legs and then resting her chin against her hands. "A considerable amount of data tells I am missing him more than usual today." She takes a deep breath. "I keep wondering about what the two of them are doing right now..." She looks at the horizon in front of her, in total silence. 

After an hour, noticing that the princess is too quiet for her normal self, Emily leans against the scientist, getting her out of her thoughts. Emily’s AI is one of the best Entrapta has ever built. "Thanks, Emily..." She smiles a little bit. It is all water under the floating vehicle now. "I should start my plans for the teleportation device." She grabs her tablet and starts to work. "I saw Horde Prime using it twice and there was that time when Catra used it to send Glimmer to us in space. It works based on precisely coordinates. I initially thought that it caused the molecules to disintegrate in billions of pieces and then reintegrate back on the place you wanted to be. But, no!" She starts to type numbers down, calculating the variables of space and time. "It wraps your body with its energy and then uses the signal of this energy to attract you to the place you wanna be. This energy signal works very much like a portal. It is just way more practical and portable." Entrapta has a big smile on her face. "And I did build one with Hordak, so, I just have to put both experiments together." She claps her hands while using her hair to calculate how strong the signal can be. "This is it-!" Her thoughts are interrupted when her body jolts to the front and then the whole vehicle stops. 

"What was that?" Entrapta looks at the front of the vehicle, noticing the island in front of her. "Oh..." She jumps from the vehicle and lands on the sand, Emily jumping right after her. "Here we are." Entrapta looks at her tracker pad. "Are you recording, Emily?" She glances at the bot, who nods in agreement, in her own way. "Beast Island log, tide cycle 01, first time on Beast Island after being rescued by Adora and Bow. The place looks very much the same. It needs some cleaning too." She kicks a small rock in front of her. "In order to find some First One's tech, we need to go deeper inside the island. I brought my tracker pad with me in case I need to call for help. Even though I am not sure it will work because of the First One's signal..." Entrapta takes a few steps towards the center of the island, but then she stops once she spots one pooka sneaking around. If more show up, they will definitely attack and then Entrapta will have a big problem to handle.

"I should probably see if my friend is available to give us a ride to the center. Going by feet is highly not recommended at the moment..." She whistles really loud and all of a sudden the ground around them starts to shake, making Emily hide behind the scientist. "No need to be scared, Emily. Meet one of my friends." She points at a big technological beast that shows in front of them. "Hello, girl!" The princess shouts and waves at the four legged beast. "Told you I would come back." She giggles when the robot creature starts to roll around her. "I missed you too." Entrapta places a lock of hair on the top of her friend once she stops rolling around. "This is Emily." The princess points at the robot that is still hiding behind her. "She is accompanying me today." She jumps inside of the beast and then pulls Emily by using her hair. "Let's go!" She closes the mouth of the beast and starts to ride it. "I am so glad you are ok after that battle with the giant snakes." She takes a longer breath. "I didn't think I would come back so soon. But, now that I am here, there are so many things for me to do! Gladly I have a lot of time before having to return to my kingdom." The truth is that Entrapta isn't planning on going back home so soon, not until she finds what she is looking for. But, little does the princess of Dryl know what is happening back at her castle.

"I don't think that is the way, brother. I do believe I have seen this portrait in the past few minutes." W.H. tells his older brother, who doesn't seem very pleased by the younger one's opinion. 

"You have never been inside this castle before. You can't possibly know the right way to Entrapta's lab." Hordak grumbles, really annoyed by the fact that they haven’t found Entrapta yet. 

"I just don't want to be caught by one of her traps again." Just the thought of it happening one more time sends shivers down Wrong Hordak's spine.

"I told you not to rush inside, but, unsurprisingly, you didn't listen to me." Hordak chuckles. The confused look on his brother's face at the moment he fell inside the trapdoor, in front of the castle's gate, made Hordak laugh... a lot more than usual for his standers.

"I know she is a genius, but I didn't imagine her castle would be a maze and at the same time full of traps." W.H. hugs himself. "Why don't we try to communicate with her, brother?"

"Because I learned that, sometimes, showing up unannounced makes others happy." Hordak rubs the back of his neck, trying not to show how embarrassing saying that out loud actually is to him. 

"Oh..." W.H. claps his hands and gives a big smile to his brother. "You want to surprise her!" He gives Hordak an amazed look. "I heard some villagers talking about surprises when we were at that place called... Erelandia! I really enjoyed that village!" He cheers. "It was the first place I fought beside the princesses' alliance." 

"So I've heard." Hordak sighs. He can't focus on which way to go with W.H. talking to him. Every corridor looks exactly the same to Hordak. 

"There is this other village... Elberon. Really-" 

"Can you, please, keep quiet for a moment?!" Hordak turns around to look at his younger brother with an angry face. "If you keep talking, she will notice we are here before we can find her!"

"I am sorry, brother." W.H. gives Hordak a sad smile. "It wasn't my intention to upset you."

The sad look on W.H.'s face makes Hordak start to feel that he probably shouldn't talk to W.H. like that. He doesn't know it, but the name of what he is feeling is guilt, something he is very familiar with. Hordak sometimes forgets it is not his place to give orders to others anymore, making him act like the emperor he once was. Sure he has improved, but he still has to work through it in order to treat others in a better way. He isn't Prime and he definitely don't want to be like him. Never.

After a few more steps, Hordak stops and focus on his brother. "I... apologize." He looks away and places a hand on the back of his own neck. "You have the right to talk whenever you feel like doing it." **_Which is, apparently, all the time_ **, he thinks. "You are free to do it. Like the others..."

"Thank you, brother!" W.H. jumps on his brother, embracing him in a hug.

"Please..." Hordak tries as hard as he can to keep his anger aside. "Don't do that."

"Oh, sorry, brother." W.H. takes a few steps back. "I keep forgetting about that personal space thing we talked about."

"I can see that." Hordak takes a longer breath and then he starts his way again. "Changing the subject. Did you think about that conversation we had about names?" 

"I did put some thought into it." W.H. places a finger on his chin. "I thought about giving myself a name, like you. Wrong Hordak doesn't feel right, not now that I know who you are." He gives the older one a shy smile. "But W.H. feels like my name when you and Entrapta call me this way." He looks at Hordak’s eyes. "So, that is how I want to be called, brother." 

"Very well, W.H." Hordak crosses his wrists behind his back and stops to look at the corridor more carefully. "I have never been inside this castle before either." He finally admits to W.H. while staring at a door on the corner of the corridor. "We should see where this one leads." 

"Alright, brother." W.H. runs towards the door and opens it. He just takes one step inside before being surprised by three other people. "Ah!" He screams, taking a step back to be by his brother's side.

“Why do you keep running into places?” Hordak sighs before looking at the people inside the room.

"Isn't that...?" One of the people, the one with lilac short hair and pointy ears, stares at Hordak.

"Or they could be like the others..." The one with green hair whispers to the lilac haired one.

"Who are they, brother?" W.H. whispers to Hordak.

"It looks like they work here." Hordak answers before taking a step forward to talk with the three people. "I am Hordak." He looks at the one who hasn't spoken yet, the one with blue hair. "I am here to see princess Entrapta." 

"My name is Busgirl." The blue haired woman looks at the lilac haired one. "That is Soda Pop."

"Hi." Soda Pop waves at them.

"And that one is Baker." Busgirl points at the green haired one. "We are the kitchen staff." She points at them all.

"Hello, brothers!" W.H. waves, excitedly.

"You really need to stop calling everyone like that." Hordak places his fingers between his eyes.

"A-are you really the former leader of the Horde?" Busgirl swallows hard.

"That is irrelevant." **_I am not talking about that with a stranger_ **, Hordak thinks before taking a deep breath. "We are looking for princess Entrapta's lab." He points at the door. "We have been walking around the castle for a considerable amount of time, but we didn't find it." 

"Oh..." Baker looks at the others. "We understand." She looks at Soda Pop. "But we can't go with you or take you there."

"What?!" W.H. looks at his brother, confused. "We are not welcomed?" He gives them all a sad face.

"No, that is not it." Busgirl looks at W.H., trying to calm him down. "We just don't know how to get there, even using the map. This whole place is a labyrinth. Only princess Entrapta knows how to navigate through it." She explains to Hordak.

**_It looks like something she would design_ **, he smiles at the thought. 

"Give me a copy of this map." Hordak points at Baker. "I think I can find her lab with it."

"Alright..." Baker puts a hand inside her pocket, pulling a mini tablet device from inside it. "Here." She gives the mini tablet to Hordak. "Good luck."

"I will return it to you once I meet with her." Hordak tells the green haired woman.

"No need for that." Baker takes another mini tablet from one of her pockets. "Princess Entrapta gave us a few of those after the incident with the robots." 

"I see..." Hordak looks at the mini tablet on his hand. It takes him a few seconds, but he can finally see the patterns on the drawings. It is still a map, but a map made by Entrapta nonetheless. It is not difficult for him to read it after discovering the riddles she put between the drawings. 

"Let's go." Hordak looks at W.H. before leaving the kitchen and following the map on his hands.

"Thank you, brothers." W.H. waves before leaving the room to follow his older brother.

It takes them a few minutes, but they are finally able to find Entrapta's lab. Hordak stops in front of it and stares at the door for a few minutes. He won't say it out loud, but he is a little bit anxious. This is his first time meeting Entrapta after he left and Hordak does want this encounter to be a good thing.

"Aren't we entering the laboratory, brother?" W.H. gives his brother a confused look.

"Of course." Hordak looks at the keyboard next to the door before clearing his throat. "I know the password." He types that one sentence she always told him. **_Imperfection is beautiful_ **. 

After the door opens, they enter the lab, hoping to find Entrapta inside. However, they only find her work in there.

"Hello... is anyone home?" W.H. walks around the lab while Hordak goes right to Entrapta's whiteboard.

"Do you think she is somewhere else in the castle, brother?" The younger of the two asks Hordak. "We could try looking around."

"She told me she had a lot to do after returning from the Fright Zone." Hordak says while reading the calculations and ideas on the whiteboard. "Logically she would be here." He crosses his wrists behind his back.

**_She is planning to build a teleportation device_ ** . Hordak thinks while placing his hand above the board. **_But she needs First One's technology..._ **

"Where is she then?" W.H. walks towards his brother.

"Out." Hordak takes a deep breath. "Looking for First One's technology." He goes to Entrapta's computer.

"First One's… what?" W.H. follows Hordak.

"I will try to make contact with her. See if she is too far away. She could be literally anywhere." He presses a few buttons and then types a few words before being able to contact the princess.

"Hello!" Entrapta shouts from the other side of the screen. "Hordak!?" She stares at the image of his face, really surprised. "Why does it say here that you are calling from my lab?" She moves closer to her screen. "There is probably a malfunction."

"There isn't." Hordak sighs. "I am inside your lab." He points at the back of the room. 

"Oh..." Entrapta leans her head to the side. "You didn't tell me you were going to show up." She blinks a few times, waiting for an answer.

"Umm..." Hordak starts to feel his cheeks warmer. He can't find words to explain the situation to her without saying it was supposed to be a surprise, however, he didn’t have to. His brother did that favor to him.

"My brother wanted to surprise you, sister!" W.H. shows up in front of the screen too. "He thought it would made you happy, right brother?" He looks at Hordak, who is now fighting the urge of hiding his head behind his hands.

"Aww, that is cute." Entrapta places her hands together and gives him a big bright smile. A smile that calmed down Hordak’s soul.

"Well..." Hordak clears his throat. "Surprises aside, where are you?" He desperately changes the subject to one that is really relevant to him.

"That is a funny story, really." She rests her back against the seat inside the beast's mouth. The signal of the transmission getting weaker as she moves towards the center of the island. "Did I tell you I have a staff?"

"We met with them earlier." Hordak looks at his brother, wishing for him not to tell Entrapta that the two were lost inside the castle when they met the other three. He didn’t need one more thing to feel embarrassed about.

"So, summarizing the whole conversation, they were not happy to work with the bots and they can't navigate the castle. After I talked to them, I went back to my lab and started writing down ideas to help them. Some time later, I remembered our portal machine and thought about a teleportation device. It is way smaller, portable, you don't have to go thought it and you can use it on other things, not just yourself."

"Well thought. It has a lot of potential to become something big. However, you still didn't tell us where exactly you are." Hordak reminds her.

"Oh... right..." Entrapta looks at Emily and then back at Hordak, trying to predict how he will react to her news. "I am on Best Island." 

"W-what?!" Hordak gives her a totally shocked look. "All by yourself?"

"I am here with Emily!" She pulls the bot with her hair to show her to him.

"Entrapta..." He takes a deep breath. "You do realize it is dangerous-"

"Aah!" Entrapta screams, looking distressed because of something Hordak is not able to see from where he is.

"What is wrong?" Hordak desperately asks, really worried about her.

"Sorry. I have to go!" She shouts before hanging up the call.

"Entrapta!" Hordak punches the side of the computer, finding it hard to breath for some reason he doesn't understand.

"Brother?" W.H. places hand on Hordak's shoulder, dragging him back to reality.

Hordak looks at his brother, trying to put his thoughts together. It takes some time for him to catch up his breath. "We need to go after her."

"Do you know where this island is, brother?" W.H. gives Hordak an apprehensive look. "It looks really dangerous."

"In the past, I used to sent traitors and failures to Beast Island." Hordak looks away from W.H., not so proud about that fact. "The place is crowded with technological monstrosities and it has a signal left by the First One's that makes one succumb to one's insecurities and fears, making them become part of the island." He takes a longer breath before he starts to run towards the exit door. "Entrapta was caught by this signal once and it almost made her part of the place." He looks at the mini tablet on his hands, trying to find the right corridor to leave the castle, his brother following right behind him. "I am not leaving her on that island alone. Not again!"

It takes them a few minutes, but they are finally able to to leave the inside and find the place where they left the hovercraft they have been using to travel all around Etheria. 

"I am using this vehicle's full capacity." Hordak looks at his brother. "I recommend you to hold on tight." He says before accelerating the hovercraft to its maximum capacity. 

They practically fly away from the Crypto Castle. Hordak totally focused on his mission. W.H. on the other hand is very disoriented about the circumstances of this rescue mission since he didn't understand what his brother's words meant when he said that he wouldn't leave Entrapta on that island again. It takes him a few minutes to find a way to ask about it, but he is finally able to do so.

"Brother?" W.H calls Hordak.

"Yes?" Hordak answers, but he doesn't take his eyes away from the horizon.

"What did you mean when you said you were not leaving princess Entrapta on that island again?" The younger of the two doesn't even imagine that he has touched one of his brother's opened wounds. One that will definitely take Hordak a lot of time to heal.

"I..." He grits his teeth really hard. "Back at the time I ruled the Horde on this planet, I once chose to trust the wrong person. She made me believe Entrapta betrayed me and let the rebels infiltrate the Fright Zone." Just the thought of what happened back then with Catra makes him get to the edge of his self control. "Right after I sent my signal to Prime, I started battling against the Rebellion, believing that Entrapta was with them. The only thing on my mind back at the time was defeating Entrapta on the field because of her betrayal. To prove that I didn't need her. To prove that I was better than a princess." He glances at his younger brother. "Little did I know she had been sent to Beast Island by the one I chose to trust as my second in command. Entrapta tried to alert me about the portal we were trying to open and, in the end, she was sent to die on that island." He takes a deep breath, trying to keep his feelings under control. "She could have died there and I wouldn't even know." His grip around the steering lever tightens. "The moment I was told about her whereabouts, I thought she was certainly dead. I believed I would not see her again... ever. The worst part was having to live knowing that the last time we saw each other, on the day the portal was set off, I was so hostile to her... I would never forgive myself if she died because I chose to trust the wrong person. Because I didn't trust her enough..." He places his hand on the crystal resting on his chest. "I just... don't want to lose her again. I..." He takes a longer breath. "I am very fond of her." 

Hordak doesn't tell W.H. more after that declaration, he just keeps his eyes focused on the land ahead of them. However, unlike the older of the two, W.H. keeps thinking about Hordak's words and what they meant. He really wants to learn about all these complex feelings and with his brother he has been able to achieve that.

"Thank you, brother, for sharing your past with me." W.H. looks at his brother's eyes. "Now I understand why you always talk about her and the time you spent together." He gives Hordak a sincere smile. "You want to be with princess Entrapta because you care about her." 

"Yes." Hordak answers before looking to the opposite way, trying to hide his feelings from W.H. "That is a good observation." He clears his throat. "There is one thing I would like to ask you."

"What is it, brother?" W.H. happily asks.

"I want you not to mention to Entrapta the other things we have been doing around Etheria." Hordak scratches the back of his head.

"You mean the reconstruction of Salineas that our brothers helped us with?" W.H. asks, confused. He doesn’t really understand why his brother is bringing that up.

"That and the thing we did back on Erelandia and Elberon." Hordak sighs, thinking about all the work he had to reconstruct the places he destroyed. Luckily the other clones helped him.

It is not like he is lying to the princess. What he told Entrapta was true, he is looking for the other clones to teach them a better way of living, but he is also asking the help of their brothers to fix the mess he made in the past. The clones always took turns between learning how to be themselves and helping Hordak reconstruct the villages. It worked out for all of them.

"Why don't you want her to know?" W.H. gives his brother another confused look. He still doesn't understand why the good things his brother did have to be a secret.

"Because fixing what I destroyed is something I have to do." Hordak takes a deep breath. "Dealing with the other princesses is also something I have to do without Entrapta. Her presence would affect the way the others talk to me. They would treat me better because of her." He moves his hand through his hair. "And I don't deserve it. I deserve to pay for my crimes. When I talked to the princess of Salineas, she didn't want me to move a rock inside her kingdom." He looks at his brother. "You remember that, don't you?"

"Yes... It was a mess. She wanted to call princess Entrapta." W.H. places a finger on his chin, trying to remember the details of that moment. "But she changed her mind once you told her about your plans to improve her kingdom."

"That is what I am trying to say." Hordak takes a deep breath. "I changed her mind myself and now I am welcomed on her kingdom."

"But I still don't understand why Entrapta can't know about it." The younger one is still lost between his brother's feelings. Some of his actions didn't make sense to W.H.

"They are her friends... I don't want my presence to affect her friendship with them. I am trying to redeem myself not just for me..." He looks at the sky and then at the road. "I owe that to her."

"I know your heart is in the right place, brother, but I think you should tell her at some point." W.H. gives his brother a sincere smile before grabbing a tracker pad from inside the backpack a villager from Elberon gave them. "I am going to try to communicate with the princess."

"Please, do it." Hordak asks him, starting to feel all his worries fall his shoulders again. 

W.H. tries a few times, but Entrapta doesn't answer to his calls, making both of them feel uneasy about the situation.

"Nothing?" Hordak gives the other one a concerned look, receiving nods of disagreement from W.H. "Entrapta…" He touches his crystal, trying to keep himself under control.

"The sea." W.H. points at the enormous amount of water ahead of them.

"Finally." Hordak sighs before placing both his hands around the steering lever. 

It takes them a considerable amount of time, but the two can finally spot the island on the horizon after an hour or so. Once they get to the shore, Hordak starts analyzing the ground, looking for any sign of Entrapta. The first thing he finds is the hovercraft Entrapta arrived in.

"We should start moving towards the center." Hordak tells his younger brother, looking for footprints on the sand. She once told him that the center of the island had a lot of tech, so, it must be where she is going, in his opinion.

"But, brother, do you have a plan?" W.H. now starts to be concerned about his brother. He doesn't seem to be looking clearly at the situation, at all. "You told me this place has dangerous creatures. How are we gonna fight them without any weapons?"

"We don't need to fight. We just have to locate Entrapta and be sure she is safe." Hordak starts his way to the center of the island with his brother following him. "If we move carefully, we won't give any reasons for the creatures to attack us." He whispers to W.H. 

"Alright, brother." W.H. swallows hard once he spots shadows moving behind the trees. "Lead the way." He whispers back, trying to keep his voice calm, but, honestly, he is totally freaking out. 

They walk for minutes or even for an hour, Hordak lost track of time after Entrapta's footprints were replaced by the footprints of a beast. That really made him lose his mind. What if something captured her? What if they can't find her before the sunset? Hordak has his mind full of questions with no answers and that makes him feel really frustrated.

"Brother, look!" W.H. points at a rounded figure coming towards them. One Hordak didn't notice before it was upon them.

"Stay behind!" Hordak grabs his younger brother's arm and pulls him to the side. He braces for impact, but that doesn’t happen. What follows next are a couple of beeps that Hordak was very familiar with. 

"Oh… I have seen this one before." W.H. tries to catch his breath, still startled by the sudden commotion.

"This is Entrapta's robot." Hordak gently places his hand on the top of Emily, who answers with a few beeps. "Where is she?" He asks the bot, who makes a few sounds before leaving Hordak behind and start running to their opposite direction. "We should follow her lead." He runs after the robot, trying to focus on his surroundings, but the only thing on his mind is to make sure Entrapta is alright.

They follow Emily for a couple of minutes until they finally stop. Hordak is confused at first because he can't find the princess anywhere around him. The only thing he finds is a dormant four legged beast near a curtain of purple ivies.

"I don't understand." Hordak looks at the whole scenario, really confused.

"The bot is pointing at the beast, brother." W.H., who has been watching Emily carefully, tells Hordak. "At its mouth?" He says, confused.

"We should get closer." Hordak tells him while walking towards the place Emily is standing. It takes him just a few seconds to recognize the purple hair leaving the place under the beast's head. "Entrapta!" He shouts before rushing to get the princess away from the beast. 

"It looks like the beast was protecting her. It is still breathing." W.H. touches the mechanical beast. "It didn't smash her. It just hid the princess." 

"A hand would be appreciated, little brother." Hordak calls W.H. out of his analysis about the situation. The younger one then rushes to his brother side and together they are able to get Entrapta out. Hordak lies Entrapta down on the ground to make sure she is fine.

"She is unconscious, but her vitals seem to be normal at the moment." Hordak states after checking her heartbeat and breath. 

"She is holding something." W.H. points at Entrapta's hand. 

Hordak carefully touches her gloved hand, in order to see what is the thing that she is holding so tightly. 

"First One's technology." Hordak tells him while looking at the small blue crystal on her hand. "Take good care of it. She will ask about it later." He says before giving the crystal to his younger brother. He places Entrapta’s head on his arm, holding her next to him, carefully.

"She came all this way just for this tiny crystal?" W.H. looks closer at the blue shiny thing.

"It is not... just a crystal." Entrapta says with some difficulty, trying to sit down to look at her surroundings. 

"Entrapta…" Hordak places a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Please, don't move." He places her down again. 

"Where is Emily?!" She widens her eyes.

"Right there." Hordak points at the bot, who is just recording the surroundings. "We found you because of her."

"That is my girl." Entrapta gives her bot a tired smile.

"What happened here?" Hordak points at the four legged beast.

"We were attacked by the giant snakes after I retrieved the crystal. My friend there saved me." She points at the beast. "Is she alright?" 

"She is breathing." W.H. tells Entrapta. "I think she is just resting now." He looks back at the creature.

"That is good." Entrapta takes a deep breath and then closes her eyes. "I believe I broke my left ankle." She makes a frown once the pain hits her again.

"We will take care of it once we are back on Dryl." He stands up and picks Entrapta up in bridal style, gently enough to not hurt her in the process."Let's leave this island now." He looks at his brother. "I would appreciate if you led the way, W.H."

"You can count on me, brother." W.H. smiles and starts his way, Emily following right behind him.

"Hordak…" Entrapta places a hand on his cheek. "Sorry for making you come all this way to rescue me."

"I would travel to another galaxy if needed." He smiles at her. "I am just glad you are safe." He tells her while looking at the ground so he won’t fall down because of a rock or a big footprint. Hordak is really focused on keeping Entrapta safe, reason why he asked his brother to lead the way.

"I am sorry I wasn't there for your surprise.” She shoves her mask down over her face. “You took a break from your mission to see me and now you are on Beast Island.” 

“Don’t think about it.” Hordak glances at her. “We are reunited now. That is what really matters.” 

“You are not mad?” She slowly slides her mask up to reveal her surprised face. 

“No, princess, I am not. If it didn’t have a bit of danger, it wouldn’t be you, right?” Hordak chuckles. “Why don’t you tell me more about your teleportation device? I am intrigued.” He smiles at her when she gives him a look full of joy and excitement.

And so she tells him about all her ideas and plans for the device. He eventually told her more about teleportation when Entrapta was not certain about an specific subject regarding the functionality of such device. Unsurprisingly, she knew almost everything there is to know about teleportation. Hordak always knew she was a genius, but he always finds himself astonished by Entrapta’s mind. He never finds himself tired of listening to her, even when she tells him things that are hard for him to hear. And just like that, they talk about teleportation until they arrive to the Crypto Castle. 

W.H. arrives first with Emily, using the vehicle Entrapta arrived to the island, while Hordak drove his own hovercraft back to Dryl. He thought it was safer since he knew how to drive that one better. Once they are all together, Entrapta points them the way to her room so they can take care of her ankle. She uses her own map to do it.

Once they find her room, W.H. tells them that he will look for something for the princess to eat. Since he doesn’t know the way to the kitchen, Entrapta tells Emily to show him the way there, leaving Entrapta and Hordak alone.

“You should take a shower while I find a way to immobilize your left ankle.” He tells the princess while placing Entrapta on her bed. “Do you need help or you can walk using you hair?” He asks her without noticing the red on her cheeks.

“I have my bots and hair to help me with that. You don’t need to worry about me falling down or anything.” She tells him before using her hair to stand up and find her way towards the bathroom. “I will be out in a few minutes.” She says before closing the door right behind her.

The reason why Entrapta rushes inside the bathroom is because everything on that situation was new to her, no one, besides her bots, entered her personal room before. That is totally new ground. Not that she doesn’t trust Hordak, he is probably the one she trusts the most, but the thought of him inside her room still made her blush and feel like if there were sparkles inside her chest. 

A couple of minutes later, Entrapta leaves the bathroom and that is when Hordak becomes speechless. For the first time in his life, he sees Entrapta’s hair down. She looks beautiful and the only thing he can do is stare for a long period of time, leaving the princess a bit uncomfortable.

“Hordak?” Entrapta looks at him, confused. “Is there something wrong?” She raises an eyebrow.

“No…” Hordak shakes his head in order to keep himself focused. “It is just… This is the first time I see your hair down.” He points at her head.

“Oh…” Entrapta holds a lock of her hair and places it behind her ear. “My bots are not programmed to do pigtails.” She giggles. “And I don’t like them touching my hair.” She sits on the bed and looks at Hordak. “What do you have for me there?” She looks at his hands. 

“It is something very simple.” Hordak kneels down in front of her. “May I?” He points at her ankle and she nods in agreement. “It is going to hurt, but I have to put it back on its place.” He carefully, but precisely places Entrapta’s ankle back on its place. He tries to ignore the sounds of pain she makes when he touches it, but it killed him inside every time. After that, he places a splint made of steel against Entrapta’s ankle. WIth that and a few other pieces of steel he found inside her lab, Hordak makes her an orthopedic device.

“Now you just need to rest, keep the orthopedic device for the next six weeks and it will be as good as new.” He stands up and sits next to her.

“Thanks, Hordak.” She smiles at him and then rests her head against his arm. “I am glad you are here.” She closes her eyes and relaxes, feeling her skin against his. This is the closer she has ever been to him and, surprisingly, she is very comfortable with that sort of contact. However, as a scientist, her curiosity tells her to find out how far she can go.

They stay in silence for a few seconds until Hordak decides to speak again, dragging Entrapta away from her thoughts.

“I… felt your absence, deeply.” He clears his throat. It has been some time since it was just the two of them and back then she wasn’t that close to him, making Hordak not so sure about how to act from that point forward.

“I missed you too.” Entrapta says before she gives Hordak a gentle kiss on the cheek, making the clone blush a lot. **_Yes, that is definitely how far I can go right now_** , she thinks while trying not to blush like him.

To Hordak it felt like she was reading him, it was like she knew exactly how he felt. Obviously Entrapta didn’t, but she had an idea of how he felt and she just wanted to ensure him that everything is fine. Hordak, of course was not expecting that kiss, it surprised him, in a good way, and looking at his surprised face made Entrapta’s heart feel warmer, making her own insecurities fade away.

“How did you find my lab so fast?” Entrapta suddenly asks, wanting to make that demonstration of affection feel as natural as possible. The princess doesn't want to make a big deal out of the kiss and she is, in fact, really curious about it because the map she is making for him is not ready yet, so, she got intrigued.

“I borrowed a map from your staff.” He shows her the mini tablet, his cheeks are still a bit read, but he tries to act as normal as possible. “Good job with the riddles by the way.” He places it back on the pocket attached to his waist, a gift from one of the villages he helped to rebuild. 

“I am still working on yours. I am personalizing it.” A shy smile shows up on her face. “Have you ever imagined that you would need a map to navigate your home one day?” 

“Certainly not.” Hordak chuckles. “But that doesn’t bother me, if that is what you are concerned about.” He looks into her magenta eyes, finding out that is exactly what she was concerned about.

“How long are you planning to stay?” The princess places a lock of her hair on his shoulder.

“A couple of days.” Hordak places his hand above her hair with a smile. “I have to go to Plumeria next. I heard their princess is back now.”

“So, you are visiting Perfuma then.” Entrapta plays with her hair. “Maybe you will meet with Scorpia too, they are really close nowadays-” She suddenly stops talking because she remembers something really important. Entrapta moves a little on the bed to look at the desk next to it. On the desk, she spots a few papers lying around. “I have something to show you.” She grabs the papers with her hair and gives them to Hordak. “I have been working on it before I go to sleep that is why it is here.” She uses her hair to open the scroll on his hands. It just takes him a look at the papers to know what they are about. Their lab… their sanctum. He observes it for a few seconds, carefully looking at every single detail on it. He could tell that she put a lot of thought and time on it. 

“Impressive…” He places a finger on the place she called as ‘Hordak’s side of the lab’.

“I am glad you like it.” She says, relieved. “I tried to make it look a little bit like what you had back at the Fright Zone.”

“I see.” He smiles at her drawings. “I appreciate your consideration and all the effort you put into this. I look forward for us to start building it.”

“It is a date!” She giggles and looks at Hordak’s red eyes. Entrapta has a beautiful glow on her eyes, one that makes Hordak’s heart beat faster. 

A glow Hordak swears on his life that he is never forgetting again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes.  
> I hope to see you on the next chapter!


	3. Stargazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Allow yourself to disconnect from everything else. Don’t think about what stars are or where they come from. Just look at their beauty. This is called stargazing.”
> 
> Hordak and Entrapta spend some quality time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning to write a 3.000 word chapter, but I got a little carried away (again).  
> But I just can't stop until I feel that everything I want to tell is there.
> 
> I just hope you all like it!

Entrapta wakes up happier than usual this morning. The princess has a day full of projects ahead of her, however, that is not the source of the big bright smile on her face. Even though she loves having a day full of work to do, spending some quality time with her lab partner makes her heart beat faster, in a good way. Just the fact that Hordak is in the castle makes her full of joy.

After getting ready for the day and making sure her orthopedic device is in order, Entrapta uses her hair to walk towards the dinning room to meet with Hordak and W.H. for breakfast.

Once Entrapta enters the room, she finds the two clones sit next to each other, in the right side of the table. Emily is standing next to W.H., making noises while the other two talk. Hordak is wearing navy blue clothing while his brother chose to go with dark purple for the day, both of them no longer wearing the Horde's insignia. Entrapta made the new cloths for the two after they arrived the day before, even though Hordak told her to rest. But, honestly, she has never been the kind of person who knew how to rest, she loved to have something to do.

Once she gets closer to them, Entrapta overhears the two clones discussing plans for some sort of project they have involving plants, a subject she didn't know Hordak or W.H. were interested in. 

"Good morning." She waves at them, starting her way towards the head of the table.

"Excellent morning, princess Entrapta." W.H. smiles broadly.

"Good morning, Entrapta." Hordak stands up to help her with the chair. "What is the status of your ankle?"

"It is swollen and it still hurts." Entrapta takes the hand Hordak offered her. "But I asked Perfuma to send me medication supplies." The princess sits down on her chair. "It should be here later in the afternoon." She focus on the tiny breads in front of her before grabbing one. "What were you two talking about? I heard something about plants." She lays her eyes on Hordak, who freezes on his seat. 

"Well..." Hordak clears his throat before looking at his brother for help. He doesn't want to tell the princess that they were planning the reconstruction of Plumeria's surroundings and discussing the improvements the both of them can offer to that kingdom. He is not ready to tell her, yet. "W.H. is planning to start gardening." He forces a smile to Entrapta, telling himself that it was not an entire lie. W.H. did tell Hordak that he wants to have a garden in the castle. **_Why not bring that up now, right?_ **, he thinks. "We were making plans regarding that."

"I didn't know you were interested in plants." Entrapta raises an eyebrow at her lab partner. 

"I am not, but he is." Hordak points at his brother, who nods in agreement.

"I thought about asking permission to start gardening outside the castle." W.H. glances at his brother. "But I wasn't planning to ask it now because we just got here." He gives a warning look to Hordak. His brother was not supposed to tell Entrapta about his future plans just to avoid talking to her about the truth regarding their visit to Plumeria.

"You don't need my permission for that." Entrapta gives an assuring smile to the younger clone. "You can do whatever you want." 

"Really?" W.H. has sparkles on his eyes, momently forgetting his brother’s doing. The positive response from the princess made him cheerful and now he already knows what he is focusing on for the next few days.

"Of course." She points at the room by using her hair. "You will be living here. You don't need to ask permission for doing what you like."

"Thank you, princess!" W.H. stands up and bows. "I will start preparations shortly." He waves before leaving the room, Emily guiding him to the exit door.

"He will love your visit to Plumeria." Entrapta tells Hordak before sipping the hot cocoa from her tiny mug. It isn't a cold day on Dryl, but she just loves hot cocoa so much.

"Yes, he will." Hordak looks at his coffee, trying to avoid eye contact with Entrapta. He actually feels really bad for lying to her like that. 

"Is there anything bothering you?" Entrapta places a lock of hair on Hordak's shoulder in order to make him look at her. She is not an expert at the people subject, but she did watch a lot of social experiments to know when someone is avoiding eye contact with her.

"No." He drinks his coffee and gathers courage so his eyes can meet hers again. "I am just thinking about the plans we made for today." He lies, again. He knows Entrapta well enough to know that just the mention of their plans for the day would make her forget about the awkward situation.

"I am so excited to work on those projects!" She moves her hands around, really excited. 

"Which project is your favorite?" Hordak raises a brow, teasing Entrapta. He also knows that she finds it hard to pick up favorites.

"Well..." Entrapta places a strand of her hair on her chin. "The teleportation device is fascinating!" She giggles. "But I just can't wait to start building the machinery for our lab." She gives him a lazy smile. "I have been working on those blueprints for hours before bed."

"So?" He gives her a teasing smile.

"You are doing that on purpose!" Entrapta points at his chest once she finally realizes his intentions. "You know I can't pick!" She gives a bump on his arm by using her hair.

"You got me." Hordak chuckles. "I wanted to see you trying anyway." The casual relaxed setting between them at the moment makes a quiet contentment spread through him. He likes it when the two of them get like that. 

For Entrapta it feels like they are in a really good place with their friendship and just the thought of that makes her feel a sudden flare of joy. The princess still doesn't know how or when she will take the next step regarding her attempts on physical contact with him, but being casual like this makes her relax. It feels like it is just the two of them in the whole world.

"So, have you been into anything new lately?" Entrapta gazes at him with a smile on the face. They didn’t have a lot of time to catch up the other day, so, she decides to bring that up now.

"For example?" He asks a little bit nervous. There is no way she could have found out, right? He specifically told the Salineas’ princess, Mermista, he didn’t want Entrapta to find out about all his work on the reconstruction of the kingdom. 

"I don't know." The princess shrugs, what makes Hordak relax. Entrapta really sounded like she doesn’t know about any of it. "You've been to so many places lately. I was just wondering if you found anything new you like to do." She continues while playing with a spoon, trying to distract herself. “Of course I know you have already been to all places on Etheria before, when you were trying to conquer it…” She looks at him for a brief moment before focusing on the spoon again. “However, now that you are contemplating it from a different perspective, I thought that, maybe, you could have learned something new that got your attention. A hobby, even?”

“I see.” Hordak places his hand over his chin, trying to think about anything new that he learned on his trips. It takes him some time to think of something, but he can easily choose what he enjoyed the most, even if it is something unusual among his interests. “There is one thing, but I already knew how to do it before.” He leans his back against the chair. “I learned I can have a good time while I am sailing.” He says the last word lowering his voice. Hordak himself has not accepted that he can be interested in something like the ocean and boats just for the fun of being on it.

“Tell me more about it.” She brings her body closer, cups her cheeks upon her hands and rests her elbows against the table, paying her whole attention to him now.

“You want to listen about sailing?” Hordak gives her a confused look, his head tilting to the side.

“I want to listen about anything that makes you happy.” Entrapta gazes at him with affection. "No matter what that is."

His mood lifts once he listens to her words. Hordak oftly forgets how supportive Entrapta can be, even when the subject is not one of her favorites.

"I found out when we stopped in Salineas." Hordak also brings himself closer to the table, resting his arms crossed on it. "I was feeling overwhelmed and I felt the need to be alone for a long period of time." He looks away from her for a quick moment. Hordak sincerely wishes she doesn't ask why he was feeling that way or else he would end up lying again. It all happened in the day Mermista rejected his reconstructions ideas, for the second time, making the former lord feel really frustrated back then. "Well..." Hordak clears his throat. "I didn't want to be on land because I couldn't stand being around any of my 'brothers' and they were literally everywhere." He lets a tired sigh out. "So, I borrowed a boat and sailed as far as I could by myself. That is when I discovered that being surrounded only by water gives me peace of mind. While I was sailing I didn't have to worry about anything else, but myself. I was finally able to relax and clear my thoughts." He lets a smile show up on his face. "I spent the whole day just looking at the waves and feeling the breeze against my skin. It was a new sensation that I really appreciated." 

"It sounds like you had the best of times." The princess places a gloved hand on his.

"I certainly did." Hordak looks at her hand resting on his and suddenly he has an idea. "We could do it together, one day." He makes the offer in a clumsy way. Hordak is not certain if Entrapta likes boats or the ocean at all, but what he knows is that he would really appreciate if Entrapta accompanied him. He would be happy if she did.

"I would enjoy it a lot." Entrapta answers with a sincere smile. The thought of the two of them on a boat together, only watching their surroundings felt great. Even though Entrapta can't really picture her doing nothing to the boat while being there. 

"That is excellent news. We can plan the trip once my mission is complete.” Hordak takes his datapad from his pocket and write down notes before talking to her again. “What about you?" He suddenly changes the subject, but not because he is uncomfortable or anything, he genuinely wants to know if she has any new hobbies that he is unaware of.

“Me? I practically told you everything I like to do already.” Entrapta crosses her arms on the table, her hands feeling a little bit sweaty under her gloves. 

“Practically?” Hordak raises a brow, noticing what she did there with her choice of words.

“There is this one thing…” Entrapta grabs another tiny bread to eat. “I learned it with you, actually.” She toys with a lock of hair while Hordak gives her an astonished look. 

“What could it be?” He slides his chair closer, his eyes full of curiosity.

“Remember the night before you left with W.H.?” She bites her bottom lip, wondering if he still remembers what happened that night.

“Yes.” He nods in agreement, a smile showing up on his face when a memory of that night crosses his mind. It was a really great night, for both of them. “We climbed to the rooftop of Bright Moon’s castle.”

“We did.” Entrapta giggles once she remembers the look on Hordak’s face at the moment he looked down to see how far from the ground they were. “And then we laid down on the rooftop to look at the stars. That is when your eyes turned red again.” She gives him a gentle look, a really comforting one and that is when he realizes how much that memory means to Entrapta. “You also told me everything I wanted to know about constellations and stars.” 

“Even though you had already figured out almost everything by yourself.” He chuckles, remembering Entrapta talking about all the planets she saw during her trip to space.

“For the record, you gave me a lot of data.” She raps her fingers lightly on the table. “But, the thing I liked the most about that night was gaze at the stars. I had a good time while I was just looking at them without trying to calculate how far the planets and satellites are.” She stops to look at him with glowing eyes. “I find joy while doing it, especially when we have a clear sky.”

And that is when it hit him. The words he said to her back that night. **_“Allow yourself to disconnect from everything else. Don’t think about what stars are or where they come from. Just look at their beauty. This is called stargazing.”_ **. Next time he opened his eyes, after saying those words, they were no longer green. Entrapta was really impressed with the sudden change and, obviously, she came up with her own hypothesis. The princess told Hordak that it probably happened because right in that moment he felt like an individual again and not just a clone of Horde Prime.

Hordak knew she was right about the reason, since that is how his eyes turned red when it first happened, however, listening to Entrapta trying to explain all the hormones and chemistry she thought were involved in the process was captivating.

“Your new hobby is stargaze?” He asks, surprised. Hordak definitely didn’t see that coming when they started this conversation.

“Yes.” Entrapta gives him a shy smile. “I oftenly do it.” She grabs a lock of her hair. “I experimented to find out if I had this same feeling when I study the stars and data showed that studying them and gazing at them felt completely different.” She looks up so their eyes can meet again. “When I am stargazing, memories of that night come back to me... I feel happiness.”

“I see.” He takes one of her gloved hands on his, making Entrapta slightly blush on her cheeks. “It is good to know that you found something new that makes you happy.” 

“Thanks to you.” She gives him a gentle smile. 

“If you want to, the two of us can go to the rooftop of the castle to stargaze tonight.” Hordak looks at the smile forming on her face. “I am sure we can manage it even with your broken ankle.”

“Of course I want to.” Entrapta grins at him while she feels like there is a warm glow expanding throughout her chest.

“It is settled then.” He lets her hand go and with a calm long breath he leans back in his chair.

“Were you nervous?” Entrapta raises an eyebrow, trying not to giggle.

“No.” He straightens up his back in order to hide how much more relaxed he feels now. “Why did you think I was?”

“We just set up two dates in less than an hour.” Entrapta giggles. “I was a little bit anxious myself.” She places a hand on her chest. 

“I still find the concept of dates hard to understand, but that is not what made me nervous.” Hordak crosses his arms on the table again.

“So you were nervous!” Entrapta grins at him while pointing at his chest, making his ears flush of embarrassment. 

“Yes, you got me.” Hordak sighs and easily lets a smile show up on his face.

“If you want to know more about dates, you can listen to my logs about human behavior. I have a lot of data from experiments I watched.” Entrapta winks at him before drinking her hot cocoa. “What was making you feel nervous in our conversation then?”

“The possibility of ruining it?” Hordak lifts his shoulder in a half shrug. “I honestly don’t have a solid answer to give you.”

“It is alright.” Entrapta gives him a comforting look. “The important thing is that you are feeling better now.” She looks down at her tiny mug with a frown. “But you don’t need to worry about ruining things, okay?” She lifts her head up to focus on him again. “There will be times that I mess things up and times that you will do it. No one is perfect, remember? And we don’t have to be.” The princess uses her hair to grab another tiny mug filled with hot cocoa. 

"Let me guess, my imperfections are beautiful?" Hordak raises a brow while giving a smile to her.

"You know they are." She places a tendril of hair on his shoulder, gently.

"I presume you will never let me forget about that." Hordak notices a sparkle of happiness on her eyes when he says that, making him feel warmth inside of his chest.

"You know I won't." Entrapta giggles before moving to the next subject that has been on her mind lately. "Did you hear anything new about Imp by the way?" She asks him with interest. She actually missed the company of Hordak's little spy sometimes. Just like her, he liked to crawl in the vents of the Fright Zone, they both thought it was faster, so, Entrapta quickly befriended Imp.

After the battle to save Etheria was over, Hordak found his little spy on Bright Moon, in the company of three former cadets of the Horde. After they were reunited, Imp followed Hordak everywhere he went for three days straight. Before going with Entrapta to the rooftop to stargaze and say goodbye to her, the former lord decided to ask a favor from those same three former cadets. 

Hordak humbly requested the trio to take care of Imp while he was off on his mission. There was no way he could have took care of W.H. and Imp at the same time while reconstructing kingdoms and villages and helping the other clones. His little spy could be quite the teaser when he wanted to and Hordak definitely didn't have enough patience to deal with all that at the same time by himself, reason why Imp had to stay with someone else. Thankfully, the former cadets happily agreed to take care of his little spy while he was gone. They seemed to like him a lot.

Hordak thought about leaving the little brat with Entrapta, given the fact that Imp totally enjoyed her company. However, she was really busy at the time, working on the new bots for Bright Moon. Hordak knew that taking care of Imp required some attention she was not able to give back then. Obviously he felt uneasy about leaving Imp with three people he barely knew, however, they cared for the little creature even though they knew he used to be Hordak's spy. The fact that the trio took Imp in, even when they had no obligation to do so, made the former lord give them a vote of confidence.

"I video-chatted with him yesterday and he looked like he was having a good time with his new friends." Hordak crosses his arms on his chest. "He was flying around with the tracker pad while repeating other people’s sentences to tell me what he wanted." He chuckles. "It is his own way of talking."

"I recall." Entrapta nods her head. "He used to repeat you a lot when I talked to him." She gives Hordak a kind smile. “Do you think he will enjoy living here?” The princess asks him, her voice full of excitement. “I can build Imp a room full of secret tunnels for him to explore!” She claps her hands together, that wild and dangerous glow showing up on her eyes again. “It would be way cooler than the vents in the Fright Zone!”

“I think he will be overjoyed.” Hordak quietly laughs. “Especially with you building things for him to crawl into.”

“I will make a note to start drawing the blueprints for the room later!” She places a finger on her chin. “I just need to choose which of the empty rooms I am using for this... or should I redesign an old one?” She rambles on about the possibilities for not just Imp’s room, but for their lab as well, telling him about how she thought to redesign her lab to make the new sanctum. Hordak was surprised when she told him they will be knocking down a wall to make the place bigger. When he looked at the blueprints the other day, he didn’t noticed that particular detail. 

“I just noticed this castle has a considerable amount of rooms that haven’t been in use for years.” Hordak suddenly interrupts her, making Entrapta stop and stare at him. “I was wondering about the reason.”

“Well, there is a simple explanation to that..." Entrapta takes a longer breath. “I didn’t use to host guests and the Princess Prom I hosted happened when I was 8 years old, so I didn’t use to have people around the castle most of the time. Reason why I designed the Crypto Castle as it is today, when I was twelve. If no one else had the need to walk around it, why not make a castle only I could navigate?” She draws circles on the table with her fingers. “That is what I thought back then…" She lets a heavy sigh out. 

Just from listening to her story and noticing the change on her tone of voice, Hordak could imagine how lonely she must have felt back then, reminding himself of his own loneliness back on his first days on Etheria. Now he regrets asking about the rooms in the first place. If Hordak knew about the way she felt, he would never have brought up the subject.

“Anyway…” Entrapta continues, still looking at the table. “Since the only rooms I usually go to are my lab, my personal room and occasionally the kitchen, the other rooms remain untouched.” She takes a deep breath and raises her head to look at Hordak with a bright smile on the face, what surprised him. “But, from now on, the castle won’t be so lonely. I have friends to visit me and you will be living here soon.” She uses her hair to hold his hand. “I couldn’t be happier.” 

“Entrapta?” Hordak gives her a concerned look, but Entrapta doesn’t understand the reason for that. 

It takes the princess some time to notice the tears that formed in the corners of her eyes. Actually, she was just aware of them once they rolled down her cheeks.

“Oh…” Entrapta places a hand on her cheek, surprised. “I am sorry.” She wipes the tears away. “You don’t need to worry about this.”

“You are crying. How could I not be concerned?” Hordak exitates for a moment, trying to figure out if what he is about to do is too invasive somehow, however, once Hordak looks her in the eye, he makes up his mind and slowly places a hand on her other cheek to wipe away her tears with his thumb.

“They are what others would call 'happy tears'.” The princess presses her face against the palm of his hand, feeling the warmth of his skin. “I am happy because I am not alone anymore." She places her hand over his and closes her eyes. A calm smile shows up on her face once Hordak places a lock of hair behind her ear. 

"I apologize for asking about the rooms. I didn't know you felt this way about the subject." Hordak tries to hide his embarrassment even though she wasn't looking at him at the moment. He really is ashamed for making Entrapta revisit her sad memories about the castle.

"You don't have to apologize." The princess tells him, opening her eyes to gaze at him. "We can only collect data and know things about each other by making questions like this one.” She smiles. “Besides, I don't feel lonely now and that is what matters to me. I am happy."

"I am glad that you are happy then." Hordak says with a comforting smile on his face.

The two lab partners stay like that for a minute or so. Entrapta didn't expect him to initiate the physical contact, but she was so glad he did it. Once Hordak placed his hand on her cheek, the princess relaxed under his touch, Entrapta didn’t realize she needed his comfort until their skins touched. For her, it was like he completed her world in a fraction of minute and she didn’t need her data to understand why.

“We should start our way to the lab if we plan to get anything done today.” Entrapta tells him, reluctantly moving away from his touch.

“You are right.” Hordak clears his throat. He also didn’t want to leave, however, they have important things to do in the lab.

"Let's go then." Entrapta gives him a grin. "We are going to start with the teleportation device!" She stands up from her seat and grabs her tablet to use the map. On their way there, Entrapta tells about the design she wants for the teleportation device and she also reminds him about the fact that they should run tests later to know how teleportation acts long term on someone’s physiology and molecules in general. Entrapta told him about Glimmer’s power as well, although she thinks that magical teleportation and technological teleportation are slightly different, reason why running tests is really important.

In the end, it didn't take them more than a walk of five minutes to get to the lab. 

"You have already been here so make yourself at home." Entrapta says before moving towards her computer to look for the data she got from Beast Island regarding the tiny crystal she found. "All the tools we need are in the right side of the room." She points at that direction with her hair. "Cables and pieces of any metal available on Dryl are on the left." She points to the left side which contains a lot of boxes. 

Hordak decides to walk towards her worktable, where the tiny blue crystal she brought from Beast Island is. He carefully looks at it, analyzing the First One's word written on the crystal. Although Hordak can’t read it, he thinks it is really interesting.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Entrapta asks him while reading the data in her computer. "According to what I discovered, this tiny crystal has even more energy potential than the piece of First One's tech I found in the Northern Reach for the portal machine." 

"Fascinating indeed." He nods in agreement before placing the crystal on the table again.

"We will need to start with the power source for the device." She uses her hair to move towards the table with her tablet on hands. "I know it seems easy, however, the fact that it has to be as small as we can build makes the job twenty percent harder." 

"What you are implying is that it will blow up a considerable amount of times before we can get it to work." He gives her a long, weary sigh.

"Remember, Hordak, failure is a vital part of all scientific endeavor." The princess places a strand of hair on his shoulder before continuing. "Anyway, we should get started. Emily is with W.H., so I am using a tracker pad to record everything." She says before picking up the tools with what is available of her hair and start working on the blue crystal. "Since I can't stand and one of my pigtails is being used to keep me away from the ground, could you please grab the cables I need? They are all described in the blueprint here in this tablet." She says before giving the tablet to him.

"Of course." Hordak quickly walks towards the cable box and starts to look for the ones Entrapta described.

It takes hours, more than Entrapta initially planned, for their first attempt of a power source to be finished. They analyse the device a couple of times to see if everything is in order before turning it on. The two scientists really don't want it to blow up on their faces.

"Right..." Entrapta looks at the tracker pad that is recording everything. "Day 1, first attempt to make the tiniest power source I have ever seen." She looks at Hordak. "Are you ready?" 

"Affirmative." He says while taking a step back. He is well aware of what will happen if it doesn't work. 

"Alright." Entrapta takes a step back as well after placing the power source on the ground. "Here we go!" She shouts before pressing a button on her hand.

It takes a few seconds for a small blue ball of light start to form on the device. However, it takes less then a second for it to shrink and then blow up. The power source may be small, but the explosion isn't. The whole device blows up, leaving only the crystal totally intact. Once the two lab partners recover from the explosion, they take a step closer to look at it again.

"Well, I know I am stating the obvious, but it didn't work." Entrapta grabs the crystal to be sure there was no damage to it. "It should have! My numbers were all right." She scratches her chin with a strand of her hair.

"They were. We checked them three times." Hordak looks at the remains of the cables on the ground. "However, I think the numbers were not the problem, I have an idea about what went wrong." He takes a look at the blueprint again before saying anything else. He looks closer at the cables and then at the voltage they had to bear. "The cables were too thin. They couldn't handle the amount of voltage we were generating. Reason why it exploded." 

"I think you are right.” Entrapta grabs the blueprint and makes some changes in it. “We will change that in the next power source and see what happens." She places the crystal and the tablet on the table before turning around to give Hordak a smile, however, once she looks at him, she can't help but start giggling.

"What is it?" Hordak asks confused. Their experiment just failed, he doesn't understand how that can be funny.

"There is soot all over you." Entrapta elevates herself to be face to face with him. "And look at your hair." She grabs a strand of his hair. "It got all singed." She rubs her thumb on his cheek, trying to clean his face. "I am so sorry about this." She giggles again, unintentionally.

"You don't seem sorry." Hordak replies with a smile. "You should take a look at yourself." He glances at her clothes. 

There is soot all over her as well, but she didn't notice it until now. 

"Nothing a shower can't take care of." The princess shrugs before looking inside Hordak's red eyes, noticing how close their faces are at the moment. She can't help, but give him a relaxed smile while her hand still rests against his cheek.

This brings Entrapta’s mind to another experiment of hers. How far her physical contact with Hordak can go without making either of them feel uncomfortable. Unlike the device, they are making really good progress with this experiment. **_It seems like the perfect moment to return to that one_ **, she thinks before proceeding with her personal experiment. 

"Do you want to get back to work at the power source now or are we leaving it for tomorrow?" Hordak looks into her eyes as well. If he is being honest to himself, he just wants to stay close to her like this for as long as he can.

"We can leave it for tomorrow. There is no need to rush it. We will keep working on it until the device is perfect." Entrapta examines the shape of Hordak's face, running her fingers across his left cheek and then going for his ear. "Besides, we have other things to do today. Like our date, for example." She tells him, however, in Hordak’s opinion, it doesn't sound like she is totally focused on what she is saying. For him, it seems like she is more focused on his face than anything else, which, by the record, is the truth.

"What about the machinery for our lab?" Hordak clears his throat, trying to make her focus on something else rather then his face. He is not uncomfortable, but the situation is totally unusual to him. 

“We can work on that after lunch.” Entrapta gazes at his white hair. 

“Okay.” Hordak swallows hard once she runs her hand through his hair. “What are you doing by the way?” He looks at her, confused. Talking about work always caught her attention, however, that doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

“Conducting a personal experiment.” She categorically tells him, giving no more details.

“An experiment?” He raises a brow. Hordak really wishes for her to elaborate more.

“Um-hum.” Entrapta pulls her hand away from him and then looks at his face again. “But I am not ready to talk about it. Not until I collect more data.” She plays with her fingers.

“Okay.” Hordak places his hands over hers, making Entrapta stop and look at him again. “But why are you feeling nervous about it?”

“I don’t want you to be mad. People usually get mad when I use them as part of an experiment.” Entrapta looks away from him, fighting the urge to put her mask on her face.

“I am not just anyone.” Hordak places a finger on her chin, gently moving her head to look at him again. “I am your lab partner.” He gives her a supportive look.

“Thank you, Hordak.” Entrapta smiles before closing the distance between them to give him a gentle kiss on his cheek. However, unlike the other day, Hordak doesn’t have the same reaction. Sure he blushes a lot, but he also moves closer to her and answers with a kiss of his own on her cheekbone, causing Entrapta to blink her eyes a couple of times in surprise. She was not prepared for that, at all.

“You are welcome, princess.” Hordak says while grinning at her. He is proud to say that he achieved his purpose, which was surprising Entrapta. The princess usually has a fascinated, excited, happy and wild look on her face. However, looking surprised was rare and being the one to cause that reaction makes his heart get full of joy.

“Alright…” The princess takes a deep breath and reluctantly puts some distance between them. “I am going to take a shower now.” She grabs a lock of her hair. “See you later for lunch.” She waves at him before leaving, not even waiting for him to say anything else. 

After both Entrapta and Hordak took a shower, they both meet for lunch with W.H. The younger clone notices the happy looks and smiles the two lab partners exchange between them during lunch, but he doesn’t say anything about it. W.H. is just content to see his brother and Entrapta together. He didn’t notice it before, but now he can see how the two seem much happier in each other’s company. He knew his brother cared about the princess, but he didn’t know the extension of that feeling until he watched the two together. After his time together with the princess and his older brother, W.H. even considers covering for Hordak again if he needs to hide the reconstruction of a village in the future.

After lunch, the scientists return to the lab in order to start building the machinery. They spend the whole afternoon building new machines and dismantling old ones to make improvements on them. From time to time, when Entrapta is not looking, or at least when he thinks she isn’t, Hordak stops what he is doing to watch her work. The princess is well aware of him looking away from his work to gaze at her, but Entrapta pretends not to notice it. His actions make her heart feel warmer actually, reason why she doesn’t tell him to focus on the gears or the screws instead. 

When the night falls, they decide to leave the lab and go to their date. The princess and the former lord walk towards the highest tower of the Crypto Castle so it wouldn’t take them both much effort to get to the rooftop. Once they settle down, Entrapta places on the ground the basket of snacks, tiny and normal sized ones, she brought with her along with two bottles of their favorite fizzy drinks, the purple one. The night is not a cold one. In fact, there is a warm breeze in the air, making Entrapta’s hair dance with it. Both of them raise their heads up to look at the sky. 

“We have a clear sky tonight.” Entrapta tells him, really excited.

“Indeed." He nods in a agreement. "We are able to observe a considerable amount of constellations from here.” He lies down on the rooftop and so does Entrapta. Their bodies are just centimeters away from the other, making it easy for Entrapta to brush her gloved hand against his. It is her own way to ask Hordak to hold her hand and he understands that, grabbing her hand seconds later. 

They stay in silence for minutes, just stargazing and holding each other’s hand tight.

“Hordak?” Entrapta calls him, breaking the comfort silence between them. He answers just with a murmur, telling her to continue.

“Before we got up here, I checked the data I collected today.” The princess has a relaxed smile on her face.

“What did your data tell you?” Hordak asks in a calm tone of voice.

“That I had a lot of fun today.” She moves her head to look at him. “Today was great.” She says, full of excitement in her voice. 

“I am happy to hear that.” He also turns his head to the side to meet her eyes.

“I also started thinking that I want to have lots of days like this in the future.” Entrapta gently squeezes his hand. “With you.”

“And we will have." Hordak clears his throat. "As long as you want me by your side, of course.” He gives her a reassuring look, however, she responds that with a sad smile. “What is bothering you?” He asks while placing a lock of her hair behind her ear. 

“I know you have to and I want to be as supportive as I can, but deep inside I don’t want you to leave me again.” Entrapta takes a deep breath and shoves her mask down over her face to hide her feelings from him. She doesn't want to feel this way. It is really overwhelming for her.

“I understand.” Hordak looks at her mask, trying to make her see that everything is fine. “I don’t want to leave either, but I made a promise and to that promise I shall remain faithful.” He touches her mask. “May I?” He asks Entrapta, who just nods in agreement. With her permission, he slides her mask up to reveal her sad eyes to him. “I seek your company everyday since I recovered my memories, however, I was given a second chance and now I am working to be worthy of it.” He gently places a hand on her cheek. "Being away from you is the price I have to pay for that second chance."

"I know." Entrapta places her forehead against his. **_What are a few months compared to many other days like this one, right?_ **, the princess tells herself, trying to look at the bright side of the situation. "I think I can manage to keep my mind occupied for the next three months." She shrugs, trying to make it sound like it is not a considerable amount of time.

"Five." He corrects her with a gentle smile on the face.

"Right." Entrapta giggles once she realizes her numbers were wrong. "Five." She gently places the back of her hand on his temple. "We will have to work with the long-distance relationship until then I guess."

"I promise that once it is all over, we will have-"

"Time." The princess completes his sentence without giving him a chance to say anything else. "I get it."

Hordak wasn't going to say exactly that word, but it also worked for him.

If he is being honest to himself, he is still not sure where this relationship with Entrapta will lead them. Of course he wanted to tell her that they would be spending a lifetime working together and having days like this. However, he can't bring himself to say it out loud because this is a commitment that has to come from both sides. Hordak knows they are not there yet and so does she.

Actually, Entrapta thinks exactly the same way as he does. She totally wants to unravel the mysteries of the universe with Hordak and with him only because the former lord understands her in a way no one else has ever before. However, they have to be in the same page for that to work and she is well aware that they are not there yet.

Hordak and Entrapta understand that they have to work side by side to build their way to a future where they can be together, just like they are doing now. 

The fact is that there is no one else in the entire universe they would want to spend a lifetime with, besides each other.

Even though they don't know that, yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes.  
> I hope to see you on the next chapter!


	4. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Thanks for inviting me again, but I am not going."
> 
> It is another rainy day on Dryl and princess duty gets in the way of Entrapta's plans.

It is a rainy day on Dryl and Entrapta is working on her teleportation device. It has been five months since the princess of Dryl started working on this project and now she has finally achieved the final testing phase. 

She is inside her and Hordak's new lab accompanied by Emily, ready to start running the test. Sure she wanted to wait for Hordak to get home so they could test the device together, but Entrapta is too excited to wait for him, reason why she recorded a whole ethical dilemma log about the reason why she should do it as soon as she could and not wait for her lab partner. However, she just made a decision once she called and talked about it with Hordak. He ended up telling her that she could move ahead with the test because it was her project and not theirs, she could do whatever she wanted that he would not be upset about it.

His words were enough for her to get up really early in the next morning to work on the device. Now, there she is, seconds away from the final phase of her project. Or that is what she thought.

The scientist is right about to start when Scorpia contacts her to talk about an important meeting taking place on her castle at the new Scorpion Kingdom. 

"What is this meeting for again?" Entrapta raises an eyebrow at Scorpia, not really in the mood for princess duty so early in the morning.

"You know..." Scorpia laughs nervously. Due to lots of different reasons, she needs to convince Entrapta to attend to the meeting. "Kingdoms and stuff…" The scorpion princess rubs the back of her neck. She didn’t rehearse what she was going to say and everyone knows how Scorpia is really bad at lying. The thing is that the meeting is not the only reason why Scorpia needs Entrapta to visit her kingdom. There are other matters and one of them is Hordak, who is using the meeting as pretext for his own business with Entrapta. Scorpia gladly agreed to help her former boss, but she didn't know convincing Entrapta, of all people, would be her part in the plan.

"It is a normal meeting then." Entrapta shrugs. "Thanks for inviting me again, but I am not going." She quickly says before grinning at her friend. 

"What do you mean with you are not coming?" The white haired princess asks in a mix of confusion and despair. Things were going down the hill faster than Scorpia thought they would.

"I am in the middle of a big project." Entrapta explains with fascinated eyes. "I'm so excited to initiate the next phase!" She shouts while her tone of voice goes a pitch higher.

"That is great!" Scorpia gives her scientist friend a supportive smile. "I wanna hear all about it later, but…" She looks right to Entrapta's eyes. "You really have to attend to this one." She rubs the back of her neck, trying to remember something Catra told her the day before. "You already missed the last four."

"I was working." Entrapta walks with her datapad around the lab to show it to Scorpia. "See? A hundred percent reconstructed now." She has sparkles on her eyes while looking at he finished project. “Trust me, it was worthy skipping those meetings to work on this.” She has a happy, but yet shy, smile on her face.

Scorpia can tell just by looking at her friend's face that Entrapta did put a lot of time and hard work into this new lab. "It's very… scientific." The scorpion tries to compliment her friend’s hard work. Scorpia is not really a science person, reason why she doesn't know what most of the things inside the lab are, but she tries anyway.

"Thanks!" Entrapta looks back at the screen, happy to see Scorpia trying to understand her. "Now I am working on the teleportation device." She grabs a tablet with her hair and shows some schematics to Scorpia. "That is why I can't leave now." 

"I know your work is important to you. Trust me, I do." The white haired princess chuckles right before recalling what Catra told her. "But, just giving you a heads-up, Catra told me that Glimmer told Adora that if you don't show up again, she is teleporting to Dryl and taking you to the meeting." She scratches the back of her head, not really comfortable with the thought of Entrapta being kidnapped just to make her show up. Scorpia wished that was part of the lie, but Catra actually told her that.

"Well, Glimmer would be capable of such a thing." Entrapta frowns before taking a deep breath and making a bored face. "I think we should have rules about priorities to request important meetings." She crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. "In the last meeting I attended to, we talked about Frosta’s birthday party.” The princess lets out a tired sigh. “I know it was something important since she was turning 14 years old, but why did we call an urgent meeting for that? Couldn’t we just call each other to organize the party?” She tilts her head to the side, still trying to understand why the others called a meeting for that. 

"I totally agree with you." The younger princess says in a understanding tone of voice. "But they want you to show up every now and then because they care about you." Scorpia gives Entrapta a smile. "When you skip a meeting everyone keeps asking themselves if you are ok." She gives Entrapta a concerned face. 

That conversation reminds Scorpia of all the chaos that was the first time Entrapta didn't attend to a meeting. Catra said they should go look for her and see if she didn't blow up her lab, while Scorpia was already calling Hordak to find out if he knew anything. Glimmer tried to teleport there, but she got lost, reason why she also has a map of the Crypto Castle now. In the end, Perfuma decided to call Entrapta, who picked up after a few attempts from Perfuma. The geek princess told them she was working and lost track of time, reason why she wouldn't be going to Bright Moon. Everyone said it was fine and that they were glad she was ok.

The problem was when it happened the second time and the third time because she wasn't inside her castle, but at Beast Island collecting tech. It was hilarious when Scorpia thinks of it now, but, back then, it was terrifying.

"That explains why I get a lot of calls when meetings happen and I am not there." Entrapta giggles, remembering the look on Catra's face when she told the Princess Alliance she was on Beast Island. "Anyway, guess I will be forced to go rather I like it or not." She shrugs and sits on a chair next to her, spinning around on it. "At least I will finally see your castle finished." She stops spinning to look closer at the datapad. "It has so much tech in there! Almost as much as mine has!" She says, all excited again. 

Entrapta has been waiting to see her friend’s new castle for some time now. She built some of the machinery for the castle, even though she never got to see where those ended up. **_At least the meeting will be useful for that._ **Entrapta thinks.

"I don't know if it has that amount of tech, but I will be glad to show everything to you once you arrive." Scorpia gives her friend a bright smile.

"It is a date!" Entrapta giggles before jumping from her chair. "I will start packing right away!" She points at the ceiling. "If I take the hovercraft Hordak upgraded and leave before nightfall, I will be there by tomorrow afternoon."

"Great!" The white haired princess has a big smile on her face. **_Mission accomplished_ **, Scorpia thinks before talking again. "Call me if you need anything."

"Sure." Entrapta waves at her friend by using her hair. "Bye!" 

"Bye!" Scorpia waves back before Entrapta turns the datapad off to look at Emily.

"Change of plans..." She looks with a disappointed face for a moment at the teleportation device lying on her worktable. "We are going to visit Scorpia." The scientist places a lock of hair on the top of Emily, who makes some noises in response.

"I know it is not fair because I should have a saying in this. I had plans for the week…” Entrapta sighs. “But I understand that as a princess and a friend, I should attend to the meetings from time to time." She turns around to walk towards the exit door. "I should call Hordak and tell him about my trip. He is supposed to be arriving tomorrow night, but I won't be here to welcome him." The engineer places both her hands on her waist. "I hope he won't be upset about this." She places a strand of hair under her chin, recalling the plans she had. "I told him we would have dinner together while he told me all the news.” The princess holds her hands together with a dreamy look on her face. “We would talk until the sunrise and he would finally move out of the guest room to his own room.” She throws her hands in the air, really excited. “It is gonna be fun!” Entrapta shouts, but, a couple of seconds later, she stops and looks at the hallway with an upset face. “It was going to be fun.” She grabs one of her pigtails and holds tight to it. All those things would have to wait now...

At that exact moment Entrapta regrets the fact that she didn't attend a meeting or two of the Princess Alliance, even if it meant not hanging out with Scorpia and Catra on the weekends. If only she knew they would give her an ultimatum this time.

"Emily, add to Princess Alliance log." The princess lets her pigtail go and makes a bored face. "Never skip four meetings in a row or else I will be forced to attend the next one even if it's not important." She rolls her eyes and starts her way towards her personal room on the castle’s second floor. “I should bring some of my tools with me...” She tells herself right before being stopped by Emily, who forced the princess to take a step back.

“What is it girl?” The scientist raises an eyebrow, clearly confused. It doesn’t take much time for Emily to shake herself in disagreement and make some noises towards Entrapta.

“What do you mean with no tools?” She places a hand on the top of the robot. “I should check your operational system later. You are not making sense.” Entrapta tries to walk around the bot, but Emily stops her again. “Can you stop with that? I need to start packing.” She uses her hair to jump over Emily and continue her way towards her chamber, however, the robot doesn’t give up and runs to stop Entrapta again. This time, instead of making noises, she projects Entrapta’s image on the nearest wall. The scientist is sit on a rock next to the shore, smiling.

It took some time for the princess to realize what Emily was trying to do, however, now she finally gets it. “Is that one of my logs?” She gets closer to the wall. “It is from a day I went to visit Salineas with Scorpia and Perfuma.” She smiles at the memory of that day. **_It was a funny day_ **, Entrapta recalls. “Play it.”

It takes a few seconds for the recording to start playing, but, once it does, the sound of waves fills the castle’s hallways. Not even a minute later, the image of Entrapta looks at Emily to talk.

“Salineas log, day 3. All the new tech here is fascinating, I didn’t even know there was someone all the way here who knew how to work with tech like this!” She jumps from the rock and walks away from it. “I wanted to tinker with the new gate, but Mermista said I am a guest and guests don’t work for the host. Which is a totally new concept to me.” She stretches her back. “When I was back at the Horde, I was working for Hordak and after with Hordak… I guess ‘work with’ and ‘work for’ changes the context of what Mermista said…” Entrapta’s image places a lock of hair under her chin. “Anyway, when I was at Bright Moon same thing happened, so, maybe I never really understood what being a guest was…” The engineer’s hologram looks at the ocean and then back at Emily. “I guess I won’t be bringing my tools when visiting my friends next time.” Her image turns around to gaze at the sky. “I don’t need tech to make them like me… not anymore-” That is when Emily freezes the image and turns off the hologram. She showed everything Entrapta needed to see to understand why she wouldn’t need her tools for the meeting. 

The princess stays there for a while, looking at the wall before snapping out of it and looking back at her robot.

“Thanks, Emily.” Entrapta wipes away a few tears that showed up on the corner of her eyes. “I needed that.” She takes a deep breath, trying to stop her tears from falling down over her cheeks. “You always fascinates me with your programming, even though I was the one who programmed you like this.” She laughs before embracing the robot in a hug, receiving some happy noises in return.

“I should start packing now.” The lilac haired woman takes a long breath before smiling again and walking towards her bedroom. 

Once she gets there, she finds one of her purple backpacks and starts filling it with everything she needs for three days on Scopia’s kingdom. By the time Entrapta remembers to call Hordak, she is almost finished packing.

“Greetings, Entrapta.” Hordak waves at her from the other side of his datapad.

“Hello, Hordak.” The princess waves back at him. “How are you?” She moves closer to the datapad’s screen to have a better look of him.

“I am alright. Looking forward to see you.” The former lord kindly smiles at her.

“I was looking forward to that too.” Entrapta gives him a half awkward smile. “But something just came up.” She holds her hands together. Entrapta really wishes she was wherever he is right now, by his side. It has been a couple of weeks since last time they were together, what reminds Entrapta that her personal experiment has been on hold for that exact amount of time. 

At least that one has been a success so far. After kisses on the cheek and holding hands, they started cuddling after work and hugging each other more often. The cuddles were Entrapta's favorite, what actually surprised her. If someone ever told her past self that she would like to do that at any time in her life, she would tell them that they were funny. However, there she was, missing cuddling with her lab partner.

“You are talking about the meeting?” Hordak raises an eyebrow at her, interrupting Entrapta's thoughts.

“There is a meeting- Wait...” Entrapta stops to blink a few times at him. “How did you know?” She asks confused.

“Scorpia told me.” Hordak shrugged, making it sound like an usual thing. “She knew I was arriving tomorrow so she called to ask if I wanted to meet you at her castle.” He gives his lab partner a teasing smile. “You were not expecting that.” He chuckles. Little does Entrapta know that all of this was planned beforehand.  
  


“I think it is amazing the ways you find to surprise me.” Entrapta giggles, happiness bubbling up inside of her.

At that moment, the former lord feels contentment filling his heart. He didn’t notice until now how much he wanted to see Entrapta and talk to her. His mission is over and now he can finally move on and be with her, the one his thoughts go to everytime he thinks about his future.

“I try my best.” Hordak says, proud of himself. “I am already at the Fright-” He clears his throat. “I mean, the Scorpion Kingdom.” Hordak places a hand on his luvd crystal. “I have a surprise waiting for you here.” 

“A surprise?!” The princess shouts in excitement. “For me?” She places both her hands above her chest, with a bright big smile on her face. It really makes him happy to see Entrapta so excited about it. It also makes him relieved.

“Yes.” Hordak says in a gentle tone of voice. “I have something to tell you.” He scratches the back of his head, a little bit nervous about the outcomes of his surprise. “I was going to talk to you about this subject once I returned to Dryl, however, since we will both be here, I can show it to you instead of just having a conversation about the matter.” 

“Ok.” She moves closer to her datapad. “Looking forward to do that.” She winks at him, making Hordak’s ears flush and his cheeks turn red in a matter of seconds. Her unspoken words always have more impact on him than the spoken ones.

He takes a deep breath before clearing his throat and talking to her again, changing the subject to one tech related. "What is the current status of your teleportation device?" He asks with some curiosity on his voice.

"I was about to start the final testing phase, but, well, princess duty got in the way." She rolls her eyes, but still with a playful smile on her face. "Looking at the bright side of all this, at least you will be here to see it." 

"I hope it goes well." Hordak says with a serious face. The former lord always tries to look serious when encouraging his lab partner because he wants her to see that he really means what he says. Little does he know that Entrapta finds that cute actually. 

"Me too." She chuckles. "This is the longest project I have worked on since the portal machine." She sits on her bed and then grabs the datapad by using her hair. "We spent a whole year on that one."

"It was long indeed." He places his hand on the crystal again, his memories of those times filling his mind. Back on that day she said his suit was her best work until then. She seemed really excited about it and the improvements she could make. Unfortunately, it didn't last. 

"But I don't consider neither of these projects my best work." The princess gives him a knowing look, just like if she knew what he had on his mind, which, for the record, she did. 

"I…" He clears his throat while he tries not to blush, already feeling his ears flush. "I assume you are talking about the suit you built for me."

"That is exactly the one." Entrapta claps her hands. "My best work yet! It is a shame Horde Prime took it from you though." She points at Hordak's chest. "At least the crystal wasn't lost." 

"I am glad it wasn't." He looks at his necklace. "Because of it my memories of you came back to me." Hordak presses his thumb against the ancient writing on it, staring at the First One's tech for a few seconds.

"You could ask Adora." Entrapta suddenly says, making Hordak confused.

"What?" He shakes his head and then he looks back at her, not understanding why Entrapta mentioned Adora. 

"You want to know what is written on it." She gives him a teasing look.

"I don't." He looks away from his datapad. "I was wondering if you knew what it says." He gives her a half shrug, acting like he doesn't care, however, Entrapta knows Hordak really well to tell that he does care.

"I do actually." Entrapta rests her chin on the top of her gloved hand. "I did way back at the time I gave it to you." She says while her cheeks start to blush a little. "Of course I wasn't sure since I didn't know much about their language, but, after taking some lessons from Adora and the things I have learned about First One's writings through the years, I am able to give you a precise translation." She points at his image on the datapad.

"If you know what it says, why did you tell me to ask Adora?" Hordak raises a brow, really confused.

"To teach you, of course." Entrapta giggles. "I could try to do it, but I am still learning First One's writing myself, reason why I wouldn't be able to answer all your questions. I still make some spelling mistakes here and there." She presses her hand against her cheek. "But Adora, she was born with this knowledge, which is fascinating if you think about this fact." She says, really thrilled about the possibilities. Hordak could almost see the engines inside her brain working around the implications of that fact. 

"Imagine being born with previous knowledge about your native language, which was passed to you through your DNA by your progenitors!" The princess closes her eyes and throws her hands in the air. "That is so amazing!" She smiles before grabbing her tablet from inside her backpack to look at some data. "I wish she would let me study her DNA." She locks her fingers together. "Imagine all the data we could collect…"

"Entrapta." Hordak says in a warning tone of voice.

"I know, I know." She sighs, giving him a bored look. "Boundaries."

"Don't give me that look." He rolls his eyes. "I am not the one refusing to give you a DNA sample, which, for the record, you asked from me and I gave it to you."

"I remember!" The princess suddenly says with a wild smile on her face. "I have a lot of data about your species now." She claps her hands and then she stares at him with that spark of danger on her eyes. "It might come in handy."

"Glad I could help." Hordak swallows hard because he can't exactly tell what is going on inside that brilliant mind of hers.

"You don't need to worry." Entrapta giggles. "I used it only for the data." She lies down on her bed and then looks up at the datapad above her head.

"You look tired." He points out while analyzing her face. Now that Hordak thinks of it, those dark circles under her eyes weren't there last time he visited her.

"I have been working a lot lately." She takes a deep breath before closing her eyes. "It was almost sunrise by the time I finished Imp's room and then I had to build a robot to water W.H.'s plants because I keep forgetting about it while I am working." She presses a finger against her temple. "And then there are the people from my kingdom who have their needs…" She gives him a tired sigh. "You have no idea of how fast things turned upside down around here during the time I was living in the Fright Zone." She opens her eyes to look at Hordak again. "I am still working to make it go back to normal."

"You shouldn't overwork yourself." He gives her a worried look. "Your kingdom needs you, but you won't be of any help to them if you are not at your best."

"I know." She looks away from the datapad. "But even though there are so many things that have to be done here, I still travel around Etheria to visit my friends. I don't let duty get in the way of that." She turns her face back at his direction, that is when he spots a soft smile forming on her face. 

"Still, I think you should take it easy." He sits down on a rock nearby. Even though she won't gladly agree to take a break, Hordak is not giving up of his point just yet. 

"Thanks for your concern, Hordak." She winks at him before sitting down on the bed again. Entrapta knows her lab partner is just trying to help, but that doesn't make her want to take some time away from work. "Well, I can consider my trip to the Scorpion Kingdom a break." She shrugs, trying to sound convincing.

"It isn't a break if you are going there because of your meeting with the Princess Alliance." Hordak says in a serious tone of voice.

"Fine…" Entrapta takes a deep and long breath, giving up, for now. The princess knows it is not easy to change Hordak's mind about anything, even for her. Reason why she decides to wait, if she has even one chance of changing his mind about a break from her work, it won't happen over a call. 

"I will think about it on my way there." She frowns at Hordak, but that doesn't bother him. 

The former lord knows how hard it is for her to take some time away from her projects because that is what she loves to do, however, he is trying to do that for her own good. Back at their time working together in the Fright Zone, Entrapta oftenly overworked herself, resulting in chaos and in her accidentally sleeping while crawling inside the vents. It was dangerous for everyone when she got like that. However, Hordak was always worried about her back then, not the others.

“Thank you.” He gives her a discreet smile of victory.

“So, about that surprise…” She plays with her hair while gazing at him with curiosity. 

“The sooner you get here, the sooner you will find out about it.” Hordak chuckles. “In order for that to happen, I will leave you to finish what you were doing.” He gives her a gentle smile.

"But I still haven't told you what is written on the crystal." Entrapta gives him a disappointed look.

"I can wait until you get here." Hordak gives her a half shrug. "I have waited this long, I can survive a few more hours to find out."

"Where is your curiosity as a scientist, Hordak?" Entrapta raises an eyebrow, not believing in what she just heard.

"Well, I just thought, why listen about it from a datapad when you can tell me everything right here by my side." He grins at her and, by only using his eyes, Hordak challenges Entrapta to try to get there as fast as she can. He knows his princess won’t deny his offer because deep down he feels that Entrapta misses him as much as he misses her. 

Before saying anything else, the scientist gives him a big smile, accepting his challenge. “I will get the hovercraft ready!” She jumps from her bed to wave at him. “See you later!” 

“I will be waiting for you.” Hordak tells her in a sweet tone of voice, one that makes her heart melt.

“That is what I am counting on.” Entrapta giggles before turning her datapad off and grabbing her backpack to leave her home.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! How are you all doing?  
> I am fine by the way.  
> Well, let me tell you why it took so long for me to post this chapter.  
> So, the thing is that I wrote three versions of it and I didn't like either of them until I finished the fourth one (which is the one I posted and the one I liked the most)  
> I also had to divide one chapter into two because my idea would become a chapter bigger than expected and I thought it would make you all tired at some point...  
> So, yes, there will be a continuation of this chapter in the next one, taking place at Scorpia's kingdom.  
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it.  
> Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated!  
> Sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes.  
> I hope to see you on the next chapter!


	5. The Scorpion Kingdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hordak did say he had a surprise for her, however, does Entrapta really want to know all about it?
> 
> "Love, um? Is that what I should tell him?"

Just as Entrapta previously calculated, she arrived at the Scorpion Kingdom in the afternoon of the following day. Scorpia's domains are vast and that is why it took a couple of minutes for the scientist to get to her friend's castle.

On her way to the area that used to be the base of the Horde Empire on Etheria, Entrapta doesn't even recognize the place that once was the Fright Zone. Trees and flowers grew all over the land, the flora is so diverse now that it clearly had Perfuma’s hand in it. Sure the area was all covered in vegetation when She-ra freed the magic, but now, after Scorpia’s hard work to reconstruct the kingdom, it looks even more colorful and organized.

Most of the Horde’s buildings and machines were no longer around to be seen as well, but Entrapta was the one responsible for that. When her friend asked if she wanted some Horde technology, Entrapta couldn't resist the offer. Of course Scorpia kept some of it for her kingdom, but just enough to use in her castle. Entrapta helped to dismantle the parts that neither of them wanted, like what was left from the buildings, and used those to build houses in the Scorpion Kingdom for the people that used to work for Hordak.

The kingdom is a beautiful place now, full of life and joy. Entrapta can even see the sky and feel the sunlight touching her skin, the atmosphere is very different from when Hordak ruled the place. The former lord didn’t care much about the environment back then and he never upgraded his machines to reduce the emission of pollutants and that is the reason why the blue sky could never be seen above the Fright Zone in the past. Even though Entrapta wasn’t much of an outdoorsy person, she oftly noticed how dull it was outside the buildings of the Horde Empire.

Fortunately, everything is different now and if anyone asked Entrapta what she thinks of the new Scorpion KIngdom, she would say that Scorpia really did a great job on its reconstruction. Of course it isn’t perfect, but it looks right in lots of ways.

By the time Entrapta gets to her friend’s big and red castle, the white haired princess is already waiting for the scientist in the front gardens. Scorpia is sitting on a bench next to Perfuma, who arrived there on the day before. The two are laughing about something they were previously discussing when Entrapta approaches them.

“Entrapta!” Scorpia shouts once she spots her friend, jumping from the bench to give the engineer a tight hug.

“Hi.” The lilac haired princess waves at Scorpia and Perfuma by using her hair since her arms are stuck between Scorpia’s arms. Entrapta is not a person used to physical contact, but there are times, like this one, that she doesn’t feel bothered by it. In fact, it makes her happy.

“Hello, Entrapta.” Perfuma stands up as well and walks towards the other two. “How was your journey here?”

“It was good and thankfully as quick as possible.” She answers while Scorpia places her feet back on the ground, giving her some space to brief again. “I had enough time to think about some new experiments though.” The princess of Dryl turns around to look at her scorpion friend while moving her hands in the air. “I have things to discuss with you regarding the sewer system for the houses I designed. I have been doing some calculations and I realized I can improve that too.” She places a finger under her chin, noticing that there is something missing. “But maybe we should talk about it later.” She looks around, finally noticing what is wrong. “Where is Hordak?” 

“I knew you would ask.” Scorpia chuckles, while Perfuma places a hand over her mouth to hide a smile forming on her face. They both know where Hordak is and what he is up to, but they can’t let Entrapta meet with him just yet. 

“So?” The scientist raises an eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

“Hordak will be joining us later.” Perfuma tells the other princess, trying to sound as neutral as possible. As far as Entrapta knows, the flower princess still hasn’t forgiven Hordak, which is not true. Little does the scientist know that Hordak is one of her meditation students now. “We told him we would show you where you will be staying and that we would also be taking a walk around the castle before he can have your full attention.” 

“Yes!” Scorpia shouts while pointing at Perfuma all of a sudden, making the princess of Plumeria jump. The white haired woman totally forgot about the schedule they had planned with Hordak on the day before. “I told you I would show you the castle, right?” She tries to make her voice sound natural and not as confused as she is feeling at the moment.

"I assumed we would be doing that after the meeting with the Alliance tomorrow." Entrapta scratches her chin. "However, doing it now would provide me more time with my lab partner later."

"Exactly!" Scorpia points at Entrapta with a convincing face. "That is exactly what I thought." She tries to improvise. "You and Hordak might have lots of things to talk about and I want to give you guys as much time together as possible."

"Thank you?" Entrapta looks at her friend with a confused face. The conversation isn't making much sense for her at the moment and the one thing that she doesn't understand is why Scorpia wants to give her more time with Hordak. Not that she is complaining, more time with her lab partner is always good, but he is moving in with her, they will have a lot of time together from now on. However, Scorpia doesn't sound like she remembers about that.

"Okay then…" Perfuma places her hands together above her chest, giving the other princesses a tired smile. “ **_This is going to be harder than I thought_ **.” Perfuma thinks while looking at the two in front of her. "We can show Entrapta the way to her room now." She turns around before taking a deep breath. "Let's go?" She starts her way towards the front door.

"Sure." Scorpia nods after giving Entrapta a smile. "You are gonna love it!" She places her pincers together. "I had it made especially for you."

"I wanna see!" Entrapta jumps on her place, putting aside all the confusion from a minute ago. "Let's move, Emily." She points at Perfuma's direction and Emily follows the flower princess after Entrapta jumps on the top of her.

It takes them a few minutes to get to Entrapta's room inside of Scorpia's castle. Just like the scorpion princess told her friend when they were still staying at Bright Moon, there is a room made just for Entrapta, located on the third floor of the castle. 

Once they get there, the engineer is told to open the door to the guest room, being the first one to enter it. Once she is inside, she spots every detail around her and the first thing she notices is that the room looks exactly in appearance as the place she had in the Fright Zone, with lots of tools and a worktable. However, this time there is more purple inside, a proper bed and it feels much more comfy as well.

“Thanks, Scorpia.” The lilac haired princess says while using her hair to grab a six-sided hex driver. “I really appreciate this.” She has a grin on her face. “This way I can help if something goes wrong around here, regarding tech of course." She stops to look at the tool for a moment, recalling the log Emily showed her on the day before. "Only if it is an emergency or a project we are working together." She moves around the room, sitting on the bed at last. “It will take me some time to get used to this new concept of how I should behave as a guest." Entrapta says while playing with the side of the covers on her bed.

Scorpia and Perfuma share a look, trying to understand what their friend is talking about, however, neither of them seem to have a clue.

"What are you talking about?" Perfuma finally asks, walking towards the geek princess.

"Oh." Entrapta looks at the blond woman once she hears her name being called, clearly distracted by something else. For a moment, while she was navigating through her memories, she forgot Scorpia and Perfuma were there. "It's just something Mermista told me back when the three of us visited her. It was about being a guest." She shrugs. "I am still working on it."

"Do you want to talk about this?" Scorpia asks in a comforting tone of voice, trying to be a good friend as always.

"No. I already have all the data I need." The scientist jumps from the bed before standing in front of the scorpion princess with a big smile on the face. "But, thanks." She looks away, trying to focus on what to say next. "For caring." 

"If you need someone to talk to, you can count on me." Scorpia places a pincer on Entrapta's shoulder before giving her a soft smile, which the lilac haired princess answers with one of her own.

“Now back to your guest room.” Scorpia takes a step back to point at the bed.

“Oh, it is comfy.” Entrapta gives the other princesses an embarrassed smile, not really sure of what to tell Scorpia. Since it doesn’t come naturally to her, social conventions are still a thing Entrapta is working on and, according to her data, she already did what she was supposed to, she thanked her friend’s gift. There was nothing else in her mental notes that told her what to say on such an occasion, meaning that she had to improvise and, as a scientist, she isn’t much of a fan of improvisation.

“I am happy that you like it.” Scorpia gives a half smile to her friend. “I didn’t know if making it look like your old room would make you feel… uncomfortable.” She rubs the back of her neck while looking around the room with an unsure face. 

“Why would it?” Entrapta tilts her head to the side, clearly not understanding what Scorpia meant. “That is where we did a lot of things together." She grins at her friend, revisiting her memories from those days. "We watched my robots fight!" She rubs her hands together in excitement, now getting to a subject she is an expert in. "And we talked about my theories that are not just theories now!” She jumps before calming herself down and giving an honest look to her friend. “Yes, we did have bad times back then, but we also had fun!" She throws her hands in the air, getting excited again.

"You…" Scorpia sighs. "You are right." She gives a friendly smile to Entrapta before nodding in agreement. "We had fun."

"So…" Entrapta grabs her tape recorder from somewhere inside one of her pigtails by using her own hair to do it. Ready to be in her comfortable zone again. "Where are we going next?" She turns around to jump on Emily before looking directly at Perfuma. "I know you probably planned a schedule for us." She giggles.

"Don't you want to rest for a few more minutes? Maybe an hour or so?" Perfuma points at the bed. "You had a long journey to get here. You should rest before the tour."

"I have to agree with Perfuma on this one." Scorpia takes a step towards the flower princess once she spots some reluctance on Entrapta's face. "The journey from Dryl to the Scorpion Kingdom is a tiring one. You should take a nap. I can even make you some of my famous soothing tea so you can relax." The princess insists while placing her pincers together and making a happy face. 

At the moment Scorpia is really making an effort to offer her friend a relaxing time and a break, something that Entrapta appreciates, but she really doesn't want to accept the offer. The princess of Dryl doesn't understand why everyone keeps telling her that she needs rest. For her, staying awake countless hours is usual, but her friends seem to disagree with that. Yes, she hasn't been checking the data about her sleep schedule lately, but she is sure that everything is in order since she isn't feeling anything different. However, little does she know all that commotion about resting was happening because her lab partner told the two princesses about what was going on.

On the previous day Hordak told Scorpia and Perfuma that Entrapta seemed to be overworking herself and refusing to get enough sleep, so he asked them if they could convince her to take a nap once she arrived. Not that Hordak was keeping his hopes high regarding Perfuma and Scorpia's attempt to convince the scientist to rest, but he also thought that it wouldn't hurt to let them try.

"But I am not tired. At all." Entrapta opens her arms while grinning at the other two. 

"The dark circles under your eyes tell a different story." Perfuma crosses her arms, silently challenging Entrapta to say otherwise.

"You are sounding like my lab partner now." The lilac haired princess giggles, not caring much for what Perfuma just said. "I am perfectly fine." She points at the tape recorder that is being held by a strand of hair. "I came here because I wanted to spend time with my friends!" She places her hands together. "Also because I didn't want Glimmer kidnapping me inside my own house." She takes a deep breath before trying to sound convincing again. "But still... The point is that I didn't come all the way here for a break nor because I wanted to take a nap. I want to have fun!" The scientist looks at her scorpion friend with a sincere look and a wild glow on her eyes. That is more than enough to make Scorpia agree with Entrapta. The white haired princess can't bring herself to deny a friend's wish like that.

"And that is what we are doing!" Scorpia shouts while pointing at the door. "Let's go, Entrapta!" She rushes through the door with Entrapta and Emily following right behind her. 

"But, Scorpia!" Perfuma shouts before taking a deep long breath, trying to calm herself down. "I won't be the one to tell Hordak if Entrapta collapses because she didn't agree to rest." She grumbles before deciding to follow the others to keep them all on Hordak's schedule.

Except for Perfuma, who is always around nowadays, Entrapta was the first princess to arrive for the meeting, the reason why Scorpia decides to give her guest a complete tour while telling her everything there is to know about the place, except for the name of the one who built it. Usually Entrapta would easily be bored on a tour, however, she has always been interested in how things work and Scorpia's castle is a work of genius, in her opinion. The architecture of the place has tech involved in all of its processes and designs, it's a paradise for a scientist's mind, especially for Entrapta’s brain.

Just like Entrapta's, Scorpia's castle is super technological, due to the upgraded Horde technology Hordak installed for the scorpion princess a month ago. However, Entrapta doesn't know he was the one who did it.

"So, Entrapta, what have you been up to lately?" Perfuma occasionally asks the engineer once they reach the second floor of the castle. She doesn't often seem like it, but Perfuma actually cares about the princess of Dryl, even when she drives the flower princess crazy.

"You know, the usual." Entrapta says while getting closer to take a look at a keyboard she spots on the wall. "The teleportation device I have been working on is in its testing phase and the new lab is a hundred percent complete." She says while typing a few words on the keyboard. "Wow, this system's patterns are fascinating!" She comments while browsing through it and sitting on one of her pigtails. 

"Thanks?" Scorpia answers a little bit confused. That is the system Hordak installed for her and she doesn't really understand the complexity behind it, she just knows how to make it work. However, gladly, Entrapta's comment reminds Scorpia of something very important: Entrapta wasn't supposed to be analyzing the castle's tech. If she recognizes Hordak's work, Scorpia would get on her former boss' bad side. It would also ruin the whole surprise he planned for his princess.

"Why don't we go see the ballroom now?" Scorpia places a pincer on her friend's shoulder while staring at Perfuma for help.

"Yes! The sound system there is amazing. You need to see that technology." Perfuma nods in agreement, noticing what Scorpia was trying to do. 

"Just a second, I want to check this out first." The lilac haired woman says while typing a few words on the keyboard. "These patterns are familiar somehow."

"T-this used to be Horde's technology." Scorpia gets in front of the screen so Entrapta can't look at it any longer. "You spent more than a year working with this tech." She tries to make it all sound like it is not a big deal. "I am sure there is nothing new here that you haven't seen before in your life."

"This one is slightly different from what we had in the Horde." She moves Scorpia to the side by using her hair to lift up the scorpion princess.

"A-are you sure?" Scorpia scratches the back of her neck. "This could be just a coincidence."

Entrapta stops to look at her friend before speaking. "I am a hundred percent sure." She says with conviction.

"How is that?" Scorpia gives her a nervous laugh.

"I have seen these patterns before." Entrapta shrugs before looking back at the screen. "A couple of times actually."

"That is probably a coincidence." Perfuma nervously chuckles as well.

"It is not." Entrapta shakes her hand in the air. "And you should know it since it's your castle." The princess grabs a data pad from inside her hair and shows it to Scorpia, without looking away from the screen on the wall. "You were with me when I asked Mermista about who helped her with the gate. Remember? They are the same person who built your castle." She tells Scorpia with no sign of anger nor disappointment in her voice, the scientist simply sounds like she is informing Scorpia of a fact the scorpion forgot.

"R-really?" Scorpia rubs the back of her neck. "It completely slipped my mind."

"So, that means you know who this person is." Entrapta turns around to stare at Scorpia and Perfuma, who are desperately looking for a way out of the situation.

"Yes…!" Scorpia scratches the back of her head. "No...?" She looks at the ceiling before closing her eyes. "I really don't know how I should answer this!" She sighs, looking for a way out. Lying was never Scorpia's strong suit.

"What?" Entrapta raises an eyebrow, feeling confused and strangely uncomfortable.

"You see…" Perfuma walks towards Scorpia and holds her arm. "What Scorpia is trying to say is that the one who worked on her castle doesn't want people to know their name." She forces a smile, trying to look convincing.

"Hmm…" Entrapta scratches her chin while analyzing both her friends with all the skills she has for reading people. 

"Yes!" Scorpia nods in agreement. "It's exactly what Perfuma just said." She smiles at Entrapta, who suddenly claps her hands, startling the other two, who, for a moment, thought they were caught.

"I get it!" She grins before turning around to look at the screen again. "They are shy!" She giggles, making the other princesses breath in relief. "What a shame though. I really wanted to meet this mysterious scientist." She types a few words before turning the screen off. "We could share data about their works."

Perfuma and Scorpia can't help themselves, but smile at the situation. The fact that Entrapta already knew this particular scientist made both of them realize how much the lab partners really admire each other's works, no matter the situation. 

That even reminds Scorpia and Perfuma of the day Hordak asked for permission to work on the houses Entrapta designed. Even though he had already helped Scorpia with the castle, the former lord also had some ideas to improve the houses and, when he asked Scorpia if he could give it a try, of course the scorpion princess accepted his help. If Hordak wanted to help her former companions of the Horde, he could do whatever he wanted while in her domains.

Scorpia remembers that day life if it happened yesterday. They were inside the meeting room, the blueprints Entrapta made were on the table and Hordak was talking about what he had in mind. It took her some time, but Scorpia confirmed a fact during their meeting, one she only thought about when watching the two lab partners work alongside each other. Scorpia realized why they work so well together and it was because, naturally, Hordak and Entrapta's line of thinking complemented one another.

Reason why they are always improving together.

That day made Scorpia start to question the reason why Hordak didn't want Entrapta to be by his side and help him on his journey since they worked better combined than separated. It would make everything easier for everyone if he asked the scientist to join him, since it wasn't easy for any of the princesses to keep Entrapta away from the new tech every time she visited their kingdoms. 

Just the other day Mermista went nuts when Entrapta visited Salineas, accompanied by Scorpia and Perfuma. The scientist kept asking about the tech and who built it that way, leaving Mermista disorientated on how to handle the situation. Of course the sea princess isn't best friends with Hordak, but she understood what the guy was trying to do and agreed to cover for him. Gladly Perfuma helped or else Mermista would have given up and told the geek princess everything. 

The flower princess also went through the same thing the first time Entrapta was in Plumeria after the new tech was installed, however, Perfuma learned how to keep the engineer distracted from the technology that suddenly started to pop up on her friends' kingdoms. It was an achievement everyone thought was the discovery of the year, but, honestly, it was something very simple once Perfuma figured everything out.

She just had to ask about something Entrapta likes as much as she likes tech. Her lab partner, Hordak himself, the source of all the trouble they have been through was one answer to avoid it. Another was to ask her about what she has been working on or her newest discoveries about the universe. The better you knew Entrapta, the easier it would be to keep her distracted.

"So… the ballroom?" Perfuma asks Scorpia, calling her out of her thoughts. "We should finish the tour before everyone else arrives." The flower princess continues, trying to indicate that they should hurry before she asks any more questions.

"Yes, we should." Scorpia shakes her head before smiling at Entrapta. "That tech is gonna make you thrilled to bits for sure."

"All the tech here is amazing actually." Entrapta tells before jumping on the top of Emily again. "Everything works perfectly together. I wouldn't have built it any different." She has a sincere expression on the face.

"Really?" Scorpia places her pincers together and gives her a warm smile. It makes her happy to witness that her assumptions were right, they were always admiring one another, even when they didn’t know about it. 

"Yes.” Entrapta answers, confident of her words. “Whoever this person is, they really knew what they were doing." Entrapta gives her friend a half shrug, indicating that Scorpia shouldn’t worry about a thing regarding her castle.

"I am so happy to hear that. It means you have been enjoying this tour, right?" The white haired princess asks, with more excitement than Entrapta was expecting.

"Yes.” Entrapta nods as she tries to recover from all that comotion. “I've collected a lot of data." She shows her friend her tape recorder and data pad. "It has been really informative so far."

"Great!" Scorpia almost shouts, leading them towards the ballroom. "Now, let's continue." She points at the end of the hallway while marching ahead.

“I really love her, but, sometimes, she makes me lose my calmness.” Perfuma giggles as she follows Scorpia and holds her arm.

**_“Love, um?”_** Entrapta thinks as she watches Scorpia and Perfuma whisper something next to each other’s ears. **_“Is that what I should tell him?”_** She asks herself while looking for an image of Hordak’s necklace.

“Entrapta?” Perfuma calls the other princess once she notices that Entrapta stayed behind. 

“I am on my way!” Entrapta turns her device off before gently patting the top of Emily, indicating that she could follow the others.

“Is everything alright?” Perfuma asks once the scientist catches up to them.

“Yes.” Entrapta nods in agreement. “I was just making myself an important question.” She gives her a loose smile. 

“Can you share it with us?” Perfuma winks at the engineer, trying to be friendly.

“Only when I get my answer.” She pats Perfuma’s head gently by using a strand of her hair, giving her an assuring smile before looking at Scorpia for more information about the castle.

It takes them a couple of minutes to get to the ballroom and, as everyone expected, Entrapta is fascinated by the tech and the sound system. However, once they started testing it, she was less fascinated by it since loud noises bothered her sometimes, the reason why they left the place quickly. 

After that, they went to see the rest of the second floor, which included the meeting room, which is the largest and most advanced room inside the castle. It was all Hordak's idea, of course. He said that this was the most important room of her castle since it will be where she will meet with other authorities. Of course he gave Scorpia some military advice after telling her about an eventual war and other possible scenarios now that Etheria is part of the wider universe again. It mostly scared her than anything else, however, Scorpia left that meeting knowing the importance of a well equipped meeting room. 

The Scorpion princess told the other two about her story, without mentioning Hordak’s name and all they could do was giggle and hide their smiles. Even Entrapta, who knew more about the dangers of the wider universe than anyone else, thought that the situation was funny. When the tour inside the meeting room was over, they went to the first floor, which has less rooms then the last two.

"So, Entrapta, how are things with Hordak?" Perfuma suddenly asks once they reach the first floor. 

"We have been talking on a day-to-day basis. Since he is currently here, I plan to spend some time with him before and after the meeting." Entrapta looks at a window with a shy smile on her face. She can’t see much of the territory from where she is standing right now, but just knowing that Hordak is so close to her makes her heart beat faster. "I was also thinking about the surprise he said he planned for me. I keep wondering what that could be..." She looks at the garden nearby with a mix of curiosity and hope on her eyes.

"He knows you very well, so, whatever it is, I know it will make you happy." Scorpia answers, trying not to show her with mixed feelings towards the situation. She isn’t actually sure how Entrapta will react after finding out that everyone has been hiding this big thing from her. Judging from past experiences, leaving her out of important things such as this one would end up upsetting her. However, Scorpia couldn't actually be a hundred percent sure because she had to consider the fact that Entrapta changed since then, so, when Hordak asked Scorpia’s opinion, she had to stay over the fence. 

"You haven’t seen Hordak in a while, right?" Perfuma asks while the scorpion princess leads the way towards the exit. “You miss him don’t you? I mean, you talk about him a lot when we call you.” She points at Scorpia and herself. 

Scorpia always calls the princess of Dryl to set things up for the weekend and Perfuma is oftenly next to the white haired princess when she calls Entrapta, so the three of them usually talk for hours and hours while Entrapta is working on her projects. Perfuma thinks that is partially the motive that drove her closer to the geek princess, the other reason was her better understanding of Entrapta. Once the flower princess really got to know the scientist, she finally realized where she misjudged Entrapta in the past. It changed the way she sees the princess of Dryl now and she is glad that she didn’t realize it too late. 

“Y-yes.” Entrapta gives the flower princess an embarrassed look before sliding her mask down over her face. "I, um, can't wait to work with him again." She secretly smiles under her mask, hiding all her wishes from the outside world. Only between her and her thought, there is so much more she wants to do once she reunites with him.

"Fortunately you won't have to wait much longer." Perfuma gently places a hand on Entrapta’s shoulder before pointing at the exit door with a smile full of happiness.

At the moment Entrapta decides to turn around to take a look at whatever Perfuma is pointing at, she spots Hordak waiting for them at the back door standing upright, his shoulders back and his hands clasped behind the back. He almost looked like he would be facing a war battalion soon.

"Hordak?" Entrapta slides her mask up before jumping from the top of Emily and running towards her lab partner as fast as she can. "Hordak!" She shouts with her voice a pitch higher, placing her arms around him in a hug and breaking all his previous serious posture.

"Hello, Entrapta." He smiles at her before hugging her back. "How are you?" He lowers his voice so only she can listen to him.

"I'm happy to see you and…" She lifts herself up from the ground by using her hair. "I'm also excited to see that surprise you mentioned." She gently whispers in his ear.

"You have already seen half of it." Hordak says while offering his arm for Entrapta to hold.

"What do you mean?" She accepts his offer and gives him a look of curiosity. 

"You will see." He grins at her before leading Entrapta towards the gardens, leaving Scorpia, Perfuma and Emily behind. The other two princesses just stand there, hoping that everything would work right. 

"Where is W.H.?" Entrapta asks as she looks around, trying to find Hordak's younger brother.

"W.H. is with the other clones nearby where my sanctum used to be." Hordak shrugs, not worried about his brother’s whereabouts at the moment. "Thankfully he is capable of keeping everything and everyone in order by himself now." He sighs in relief, it almost feels like he is leaving some real weight off his shoulders behind. "You have no idea of how long I've been waiting for him to achieve that." The former lord says in a tired tone of voice.

"I'm happy for him." Entrapta giggles, finding her lab partner’s experience interesting on some levels. "He is learning things much faster with you around." She points out while making a few calculations inside her head.

"Teaching any of my brothers is not as easy as you might think." Hordak frowns, recalling all the trouble his brothers made him go through. All the pain and bruises are there on his body to tell a few stories. Like the time W.H. accidentally pushed him off a boat or the time one of his other brothers hit his back with a wooden beam while they were reconstructing a few buildings in Erelandia. There were also a few of his brothers that were so scared when Hordak first met them that he was received by an attack of pebbles and rocks. Of course he had good times with them, but there were countless hard times. 

"But I bet it's not as bad as you make it sound." She holds his hand and then kisses his cheek, an attempt to make him feel better. 

"It has its ups and downs." He chuckles before taking a few more steps. He can’t possibly say that helping his brothers was bad because he wanted to help them and they also wanted to help him. Even when the days seemed hard and hopeless, there they were to cheer him up. W.H. proved himself to be a better brother than anyone has ever been to Hordak, but he would never admit that outloud. 

It takes a few more minutes, but Hordak is finally driven away from his thoughts once they get to the right place. First he gently stops before turning to the side to look at the princess, who was enjoying his company so far, even when he kept himself in silence. Before speaking any word, he takes her hand on his. "Here we are." He kisses the back of her gloved hand before pointing at a few high bushes in front of them, which makes it impossible for Entrapta to see anything behind those plants. However, once Hordak moves those to the side, she can see everything.

Hordak chose a private part of the gardens so they won't be interrupted if any of the other princesses arrive since what they have to discuss is a subject of extreme importance. On the ground, next to a few daisies, there is a picnic basket waiting for them, accompanied by a blue and purple picnic towel. The former lord never thought of himself as someone romantic, however, after learning a thing or two about dating, he started thinking about the things he could do for Entrapta. A picnic wasn't his first option, but Scorpia told him Entrapta would be surprised.

The scorpion princess just forgot to mention if Entrapta would be surprised in a good or bad way. And by just judging the look on her face, Hordak isn't quite sure if she likes it or not.

"We are having a picnic?" Entrapta finally asks, confused mostly, however, Hordak can’t quite tell if that is all she is feeling. Yes, of all the things he could have planned, a picnic was the last one she was expecting and that amazed her in some way.

"I know you are not an outdoor person, however, I didn't believe you would stop thinking about the tech while you were still inside the castle." He offers her a hand while they sit down on the picnic towel.

"It's not like I will ever stop thinking about tech." She winks at him before grabbing the picnic basket with a tendril of hair and opening it. "Tiny food!" She grabs a cupcake decorated with purple frosting from inside the basket. "My favorite!" She looks at Hordak with sparkling eyes before eating the sweet.

"I know." Hordak gives her a soft smile. "I asked them to bake all your favorites." He rubs the back of his neck. "I also tried to bake some, however, they were way better for starting a fire than for their intended purpose." 

"Thank you." She places a gloved hand on his shoulder. "I wish I could see you try though." She giggles, trying not to imagine that scenario.

"I will leave the cooking duty to W.H." Hordak sighs, disappointed in a certain level. "He is way better at it than I am and, besides that, he loves to bake." He looks away from the basket with a grimace, trying to accept his failure.

"Isn't that great?" Entrapta suddenly says while choosing another cupcake, leaving Hordak’s issues with failure aside.

"What is?" Hordak asks, however, before answering him, she places the picnic basket aside and blinks at him a few times, looking for a way to explain what was going on inside her brain. He just observes the princess as she takes his hand and presses his fingertips against her gloves, taking a deep breath before giving him a proper answer.

“The fact that each one of you are good at different areas.” Entrapta gazes at his red eyes. “You are all clones of the same being, meaning that you should be the same. Theoretically you should be copies of… him.” She looks away from his eyes for a moment before focusing on him again. It has been a while since she last mentioned Horde Prime in a conversation with Hordak and it makes her uncomfortable to mention him in a moment like this, when the outside world should be out of their way. 

"Perhaps you forgot, Entrapta, but I am a defective clone." Hordak looks at his arms with a frown. The pain he used to feel hasn't returned after the purification process and his body is not collapsing like it used to. Yes, his body was healed by Horde Prime, but the defect in his DNA was still there. It was one of the first things he checked with Entrapta before he began his mission. It can take years or even days for his body to start deteriorating again or he can stay healthy for the rest of his life, only time can tell what will happen to him. Not even Entrapta could calculate the variables of his body and that worried her. Even though she tried to hide it from him, he noticed when she slightly frowned at her results and all of a sudden started crafting his necklace. Entrapta didn’t say a word until after she was finished with it. 

At the moment Entrapta put it around his neck, she told Hordak to keep the necklace safe and close to him at all times, representing a silence promise between the two of them. After that day, they didn’t talk about the subject again. Not until now. However, unlike her, Hordak is not concerned with his defect nor scared of it because he accepted that it doesn’t define who he is. It is just a small part of him that he doesn’t need to face alone anymore. 

"I am not like the others." Hordak continues with serenity while holding her hand gently. 

"First of all, I don't easily forget data as important as this one.” The princess raises her index finger in the air accompanied by one of her pigtails, her face as confident as ever. “And second of all, I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that there is a defect in your DNA." She says without a second thought. “All of you have different personalities and habilits, but I believe they were suppressed by the hive mind while you were connected to it. Your emperor thought you were defective, but, if you think of it, all the clones are defective because none of you are just clones.” She grins at him with a glow on her eyes. “Deep down, even before being disconnected, you were your own selves and not just copies of him like you were supposed and planned to be.” She takes a deep and calm breath. “He failed at his experiment and gave individuality to each one of you.” Entrapta holds his hands with both of hers. “I can’t wait to meet all of your brothers and see how that played out!” 

For a moment Hordak just stared at her, astonished. He never thought of him and his brothers that way and all her explanation surprised him. To think that Horde Prime failed, not once or twice, but hundreds of times would be impossible for Hordak a couple of months ago, but, now, it sounds like pure irony to him and it doesn't take much longer for him to start chuckling. 

"Why are you laughing?" She gives him a half smile, tilting her head to the side. "Did I say something funny?" She scratches the top of her head using one of her pigtails. 

"It's not you." Hordak gives her a gentle smile. "Everything you said was right." He runs his fingers through his hair. "It's just the irony of the situation that makes me laugh." He places a hand on his chest, an attempt to control his laugh.

"Oh." Entrapta places a finger under her chin. "I get it." She giggles after understanding him. "I didn't think about it that way at first." The princess answers, showing that she also thought the same as he did and Hordak can't help, but be enchanted by her. Not just because of her understanding of him, but for everything else.

"Thank you, Entrapta." He gently places a hand on her cheek with a warm smile on his face. 

"For what?" She presses her face against the palm of his hand, glad to be by his side again without having to say goodbye.

"For being here." Hordak moves his body closer to her. "With me." He places a lock of hair behind her ear.

"You don't need to thank me." Entrapta smiles back at him while the summer breeze makes her wild hair dance in the air. "I like you, very much." She yawns before continuing, the lack of sleep finally catching up to her as she recalls the thought she had earlier when she saw Scorpia and Perfuma together. Instantly, her eyes move to stare at Hordak's necklace and its crystal, making her wonder if she should have used another "L" word instead of 'like'.

"I want to spend my time with you." She finally says before slowly lying down and resting her head against his thighs.

"Tired already?" Hordak raises a brow at her, trying not to get carried away by her last declaration. 

"I just want to be closer to you." She yawns again, trying to distract him from her actions by carefully choosing her words. "I am not tired at all."

"You flatter me, but I can see you are tired." Hordak chuckles, before gently touching a strand of her hair.

"Here comes you again with this subject." Entrapta crosses her arms, giving up on her distraction plan. "I have been working like this for years and years and I am still alive." She points at herself to make her point as clear as possible.

"I can't argue with that." Hordak looks at her eyes. "But you can't blame me for caring for the one who is important to me." He gives her a half shrug. 

"I can't, but still…" She takes a deep breath, trying to sound normal and not in a place between upset and mad.

"I know and I understand." Hordak looks at the castle in front of them. "It's hard for you to stop." 

"Exactly." Entrapta points at him. "Sometimes it's hard for me to understand you." She uses a lock of her hair to point at his chest. "You know how I feel and you still want me to stop." She quickly rolls her eyes.

"I want you to take a rest." Hordak chuckles before taking a deep breath in order to clear his thoughts. "Perhaps we should change the subject, for now." He looks at her again. "Judging by the look on your face I know you will be asleep in a few minutes anyway." He shrugs before focusing on the scorpion castle one more time.

"You wanna bet?" Entrapta raises an eyebrow at him. She doesn't oftenly say it, but she loves a challenge.

"No." Hordak answers without getting his eyes off the big construction, destroying Entrapta's hopes for a bet. "There is no way I would bet at something I already know that I will end up victorious." He teases her, trying not to show that he doesn't actually think like that. He knows Entrapta can always prove him wrong if she really wants to. 

"For a moment I thought you would say yes..." Entrapta plays with a lock of her hair while scratching her chin with one of her pigtails. "What are you thinking about?" 

"Me?" Hordak widens his eyes. For a moment, he felt that she knew about all his plans, but he reminded himself that it wasn't possible. However, it was enough to remind himself what he was there to do.

"Yes?" Entrapta exchanges looks with him. "It's just you and me here." She uses her hair to pat his shoulder a couple of times.

"You are right." He gives her a half laugh before pointing at the building in front of them. "What did you think of it?"

"The castle?" She asks, trying to understand what he is about to do, but Hordak just answers her with a nod. So, she decides to share her thoughts with him, hoping that he could share some information with her about the mysterious stranger who built it.

"It is fascinating." Entrapta grabs the data pad from inside one of her pigtails and shows him a few charts. "The one who built it really knows their way with tech." She looks at her data pad, browsing through all the information she collected. "I wish I could meet them and talk." She stops to look at a picture of Salinea's Sea Gate. "They are everywhere and I still don't know who they are." She makes a frown before taking a deep breath. "Imagine how much data we could share with them." Entrapta turns off the device and puts it away. "Hordak?" She calls him once she notices that he hasn't spoken a word until now nor indicated that he was listening. 

"Entrapta… I, um, I am glad." He rubs the back of his neck, trying to gather all the courage he has inside of him to tell her the truth. That was his plan from the beginning. All this time he has been hiding this big secret from her, the closest person he has in his life, and he feels bad for doing it. Hordak wants to share all the aspects of his life with Entrapta and, for that to happen, he needs to start by telling her the honest truth. 

"Glad?" The princess asks confused, dragging him away from his thoughts.

"I mean…" Hordak clears his throat before taking a deep breath. "It makes me happy to know that you appreciated one of my biggest projects yet." He looks at her, waiting for an answer, however, all Entrapta does is blink at him a couple times. It takes her a few couple of minutes for her to completely process the information she just received. 

"What?" She finally asks between a half laugh.

"I designed and helped in the construction of the new Scorpion Castle." He tells her slowly and in a calm tone of voice.

Entrapta stares at him for a few seconds while he tries to decipher what is going on inside her brain. However, all of a sudden, before he could even conclude anything, she sits up again in a jolt, burying herself into a hard laugh. 

"Good joke Hordak!" Entrapta shouts in a higher pitch of voice as she tries to catch up her breath. "I didn't know you had such a good sense of humor." She turns around to look at him, still laughing. "Thanks for cheering me up."

"What makes you think that I am not telling you the truth?" He raises a brow at her, trying to understand what the laughing is all about.

"Well, because this would mean that you were involved in upgrading all the other princesses' kingdoms." Entrapta takes a deep breath before continuing, finally keeping her laugh under control. "I know that the same person who worked here, worked in the other kingdoms. I recognized the work as soon as I stepped inside the castle." She looks at him with a serious face, trying to make him understand her point. "I have been wanting to talk to them for a long time, whoever they are. However, I wasn't able to because neither of my friends wants to tell me who they are..." She lowers her tone of voice and looks again at her data pad that is lying on the ground.

It doesn't take much longer for Entrapta to start to put the pieces of the puzzle together, making her finally understand it all. The only confirmation she needed was the one Hordak gave her moments later. Entrapta was never good at understanding people, however, there were times that, even with her lack of experience, she could understand what other people meant. At the moment Hordak gave her a look that said he was the one who asked her friends such a thing was one of those times. It was all she needed.

"But that can't be possible... You were busy finding your brothers and helping them." She says while moving her body away from him. 

"Indeed, I was." Hordak took a deep breath. "But I also wanted to do something more for this planet." He grabs his own data pad to show her some information of what he has been working on. 

"Why?" Entrapta asks with a perplexed look on her face. All that information flooding her senses while Hordak looks for some specific information on his device. 

"What?" The former lord stops to pay attention to her.

"Why did you hide it from me?" The princess elaborates more, trying not to shove her mask down over her face. 

"I could say it was for selfish reasons." He focuses on her to make himself sound clear. "I wanted to be a better person for you and for myself." He places the device on the ground. 

"So why keep it a secret if what you were doing was good?" Entrapta asks, disoriented. "I wasn't going to try to stop you from doing what you thought was right. I would be thrilled to give you a hand if you wanted me to." She grabs the white shirt above her chest, desperately trying to keep her emotions under control.

"These are my burdens, not yours." The former lord crosses his arms. "I had to do this without you, Entrapta." He meets eye to eye with her. 

"For the same reason you had to help your brothers without me?" She looks away from him, keeping her voice down.

"Not completely, but partially it was for the same reason." Hordak crosses his legs before holding his hands together in front of his stomach. "After reflecting about my past situation, I came to the conclusion that I was still learning new things about myself every day." Hordak closes his eyes before sighing. "I wanted to find out who I was after the battle and I wanted to fix what I destroyed."

"So this was your journey to self discover?" Entrapta points at the castle by using one of her pigtails. 

"Summarizing it, yes." Hordak locks his hands together and rests his head on them.

"Why didn't you talk to me about this way before then?" The princess raises an eyebrow. "I know I am not good at people in general, but I would've tried to understand, for you." She plays with her fingers, trying to distract herself from the strange feeling that is growing inside her chest. 

"Because these were my problems." He looks away from her, trying to hide his embarrassment. "I didn't want to bother you with them."

"Bother me, um…" She finally gives up and shoves her mask down over her face.

"Yes." Hordak tries to regain his composure now that she is shutting him out and hiding her feelings inside her mask. "I didn't want you to worry about me. I wanted you to be happy." He looks at his necklace. “You had been through some hard times these past four years and I wanted to make things easier for you so you could focus on your experiments and your robots.” 

"And instead of talking to me, you decided it was best for me if you kept me out?" She continues, without looking at him. "Like everyone else used to do?" She asks, but, surprisingly, she didn't sound hurt. It felt more like he was being interrogated than anything else.

“Of course I am not like everyone else!” He tells her, almost sounding offended. “Please, trust me, I wanted to tell you everything and ask you to accompany me, however, I felt like this was a mission I had to do without you because I was still learning things myself." Hordak looks at her mask, hoping he can reach her feelings. "Meeting you is how all of this started. You were the one who told me I didn't have to be perfect. You, Entrapta, told me that my imperfections are beautiful.” 

“Then why did you want to be better for me?” She grabs her data pad to add a few data to her charts by using one of her pigtails, trying to understand everything he is saying. 

“Because I can be imperfect, but I can also improve myself at the same time.” Hordak places a hand on the crystal above his chest. “Back then I was still trying to understand what that meant to me and I didn’t want you to worry about me." Hordak takes his necklace off before looking at it. "I thought that if I figured everything out by the time I returned to your side, you wouldn't have to worry about the other princesses looking at me as the lord I used to be."

“And why would I care about what they think of you?” Entrapta tilts her head to the side. “Their thoughts never stopped me before.” She doesn’t sound angry, confused or sad. At that moment the princess is genuinely informing Hordak of a fact as calm as she could possibly be. 

"Like I told my brother when he asked, dealing with the other princesses was something I had to do without you. Your presence automatically makes them treat me better because you are their friend.” Hordak places his necklace again in its place above his chest. “All I wanted to do was to pay for my crimes. That was all." He sighs before looking again at her mask. "Do you remember what happened when I asked for a trial?” He waits for her to answer him before continuing and all she does is nod in agreement. “All Queen Glimmer told me was 'use your brain and strength to do something good this time'." He places a finger against his temple. "However, before saying anything, she looked at you for a moment and at that moment I knew what was going to happen. She said that because you were standing right next to me." He sighs before continuing. “I know it is not your fault, but neither of us could have changed that.” 

“Then you did as you were told.” Entrapta says while typing a few words on her data pad. “You used your brain and strength to do something good. You helped my friends.”

“And I also befriended them.” The former lord shows the information he was looking for in his device earlier. “This is a letter from Frosta, asking me to visit the Kingdom of Snows with She-ra and the other princesses.”

“Is this the invitation to her birthday party?” Entrapta reads it carefully, really confused this time. “But I didn’t see you there.” She scratches the back of her head.

“That is because I didn’t attend to it.” He swipes to the side to show her something else. “I knew you would be there and I wouldn’t be able to explain how I was invited without telling you everything.” He shows the data pad to her again. “Here, this is a photograph of the princess of Salineas, Sea Hawk, a few of my brothers and myself.” He points at the device. “It was taken before I left her kingdom.” 

“How did you convince her to allow you to work there?” Entrapta touches the data pad to swipe the image to the side, finding more pictures of W.H and Hordak with a few of her friends.

“It is a long story, but, trust me, it was hard.” He gives her a tired sigh, recalling all his endless nights on Salineas. “But now you understand it, right?” Hordak moves closer to her. “I wanted them to look at me for who I am and not for who I used to be.”

“I do understand.” Entrapta says as she stands up by using her hair, her hand above her mask all the time. “But I have to leave.” She holds her mask tight to its place. The princess is not upset at her lab partner nor angry, she is mostly confused and that confusion bothers her deeply. 

“Entrapta.” Hordak stands up as well. He has no intention of stopping her because he knows that she needs her time to think about all this information, but he wants her to know that he never wanted to hurt her in any way. “I finally understand that imperfections are beautiful.” He says before she turns around and leaves towards the castle.

Hordak watches her until he can no longer see the princess between bushes and trees. Hordak did notice when she slid her mask up and, at that moment, he waited with all his heart for her to turn around and look back at him, however, ... 

She never did.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! How are you all doing?  
> Well, I am finally relieved that I was able to post this chapter. (For some reason conflict between Hordak and Entrapta is hard for me to write...)
> 
> You might be asking yourself what is happening next between Entrapta and Hordak.  
> So, the only thing I can say is that we are gonna stay in the Scorpion Kingdom for one more chapter to see what happens with these two.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it.  
> Thanks for reading!  
> Comments are always appreciated!  
> Sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes.
> 
> I hope to see you on the next chapter!


	6. Make Amends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is finally time for Entrapta and Hordak to put all cards on the table and seriously discuss their relationship.

It is the middle of the afternoon when Glimmer and Bow arrive at the Scorpion Kingdom, accompanied by Adora and Catra, by using Glimmer’s teleportation power. Catra still doesn’t like the idea of teleporting everywhere they go, however, she agreed that it was faster than traveling all the way from Bright Moon to the Scorpion Kingdom.

“Alright.” Glimmer looks at her clothes, cleaning up the dust from her outfit. “Here we are.” She looks at the big red castle in front of her. “This is one fancy castle!” She jumps on her feet. “I can’t wait to see what kinds of entertainment Scorpia has inside of it.”

“Hold on, Glimmer.” Bow places a hand on her shoulder with a half smile on his face. “We are not here on vacation. We are here for the meeting.”

“Same thing.” The pink haired princess shrugs before happily pointing at the castle. “Let’s find Scorpia!” She says before teleporting away.

  
“Why is she all happy like that?” Adora asks Bow with a raised eyebrow.

“I have no idea.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Maybe it is the idea of visiting a new place.” He smiles. “I mean, look at it.” He shows the castle with the palm of his hand.. “It is so big!”

“I can’t believe that you are making a fuss because of a castle.” Catra, who was petting Melog the whole time, finally speaks. “You guys are so weird.”  
  


“You are saying that because you have been here countless times before.” Adora gently punches Catra’s arm, trying to tease her. “I bet you were as surprised as Glimmer the first time you were here.”

“Don’t you dare compare me and Sparkles.” Catra crosses her arms, but with a wry smile sneaking up on her lips. “I never reacted like her.”

“Right.” Adora grins while raising both her eyebrows. “If I didn’t know you so well I could even believe that.” She laughs before turning around to start walking upstairs to the castle’s entrance. “Come on Bow.” She gestures at the boy. “Let’s help Glimmer while Catra looks for Scorpia outside.” Adora shrugs before chuckling.

“What?!” Catra shouts at her girlfriend, noticing all the fun Adora is having teasing her. “Adora!”

“You said you were not interested on the inside, but we are. So, we will go ahead and see everything while you look for our friend on the outside.” Adora waves at the feline with a sarcastic tone of voice. “See you soon.” She secretly laughs before entering the castle.

“Sorry, Catra.” Bow shrugs before following Adora. “But someone has to look outside!” He shouts from inside the building.

“But why does it have to be me?” Catra grumbles before kicking a small rock lying on the ground. “I know the place better than any of them!” She crosses her arms before walking towards the gardens. “I will laugh at those three once they get lost.” She looks at Melog, who shakes their head at her. “You should be by my side you know?” She points at the magical being. “I noticed that you have been taking Adora’s side lately!” She shouts, remembering all the times Adora tried to convince Melog to take her side. “That is not fa-” Catra tries to continue on her argument, however, before she could complete her thoughts, Melog jumps on her, knocking her down on the ground. “WHAT?!” She looks at the cat, clearly confused and ready to yell at her friend for attacking her. “What has gotten into you?!” She locks eyes with the creature, however, all of a sudden, when she is about to speak up her mind, a purple blur passes right in front of her, running towards the entrance. 

“Wait… Is that...? Entrapta?” Catra asks herself as she stands up as fast as she can to look at whoever is running away so fast. It could be her mind playing tricks on her, but she was sure that she saw a familiar lilac hair a few seconds ago. “Entrapta!” She shouts before looking at the person running upstairs, confirming her thoughts. It is her geek friend indeed.

**_“She finally showed up for a meeting.”_ ** The feline proudly smiles before noticing that something is off. **_“Why is she running away?”_ **She asks herself before running after her friend. “Wait, Entrapta!” She shouts again once the scientist doesn’t look back. “Where are you going?" She looks at Melog for help and it doesn't take more than a second for Melog to start running faster than Catra, finally reaching Entrapta and holding her by one of her pigtails.

"Aaah!" The scientist screams, trying to get rid of the creature holding her hair.

"Entrapta?" The former force captain stops in front of the princess, gesturing to Melog to let her friend’s hair go. "What is wrong?" She asks, noticing the confusion on Entrapta's face.

"Wrong?" Entrapta tilts her head to the side once Melog lets her hair go. "Nothing is wrong." She laughs before blinking a few times at her friend. "Hi Catra!" She closes her eyes while waving at the feline with a clumsy smile on her lips. "When did you get here?" 

"A few minutes ago…" The brown haired woman scratches the back of her head. "But that is not important." She shakes her head, trying to focus on what is going on.

"Of course it is!" Entrapta points at Catra's chest by using her hair as an index finger. "All data is important."

"Glad you said that." Catra places her hands together, while taking a deep breath in order to keep herself calm. "I want you to share some data with me." She goes for a smile, not sure on how to make her friend focus.

"I am always available for sharing and exchanging data with my friends." The princess pats the top of her friend's head. "What is it that you want to know?" She places her hands together in excitement, happy to focus on something that is not related to her Hordak problem.

"Well…" Catra claps her hands once, trying to hide the irritated look on her face caused by the constantly patting on her head. "I want to know why you were running away so desperately." She says as calmly as possible.

"I wasn't." Entrapta shakes her head in disagreement, trying to avoid the subject for as long as she could at the moment.

"Wasn't what?" Catra asks, a little bit confused.

"Running away." Entrapta shrugs. "I was just running." She picks up her data pad from inside her strands of her for a distraction. She ran into Catra at the worst of times and now it is just a matter of time for the feline to find out about where Entrapta was coming from. 

"What is the difference?!" Catra straightens her eyes towards the scientist, keeping up with Entrapta’s thoughts has always been something difficult for Catra, but, somehow, it became even more challenging lately. 

"Well, I was not running away since I was not trying to get away from anyone." She says while browsing through all her data, not looking for anything in particular. "I was just running to lock myself inside my room as fast as I could so no one could talk to me." She scratches the back of her head, forcing a smile while closing her eyes to avoid Catra's gaze."But that didn't work out as planned since I am still here." She looks down to play with her gloves while holding her data pad with one of her pigtails.

"Why did you want to lock yourself inside your room?" Catra raises an eyebrow at Entrapta, really putting an effort to understand her. "Are you going to start a weird experiment or something?" She takes a step forward, warily, and looks closely at the princess. 

"No." Entrapta shakes her head, sadly smiling at Catra. “Unfortunately that is not the reason.” She laughs a bit, trying to lighten her own mood.

“So what is?” Catra raises an eyebrow, not sure if she could keep going with that conversation any longer without snapping out. Even though she has been working on her temper for the past few months, there were still times that she couldn’t help herself. 

“Well, since you want to know so badly...” Entrapta puts away her data pad before taking a deep breath. "I believe people usually say that they got their hearts broken once they find themselves in my current situation." She shrugs, trying to keep all her confused feelings to herself. 

"You had your heart broken?" Catra shakes her head, having a hard time as she tries to understand what the princess is trying to say. Since Entrapta is usually very literal, a heartbreak could mean lots of different things in the princess’ vocabulary and that is why Catra couldn’t tell if the scientist really meant what she said.

"I know it doesn't make any sense." Entrapta places a hand above her own chest, trying to understand what is going on with herself at the moment since none of the data she has is able to tell her what is happening. She never felt like this before, so of course there wouldn’t be any data about it in her database. "I am still alive, which means that my heart is functioning properly, however…" She takes a deep breath before looking at the ground. "Why am I feeling this pain inside of my chest?" The scientist covers her face with her mask once again, but, this time, to hide the tears forming on the corner of her eyes. Tears that she doesn’t want Catra to see, however, that single gesture was enough for Catra to finally notice how hurt and confused the princess really is. 

However, it doesn’t take as much time for the former force captain to get angry at the cause of her friend’s pain.

“What did **_Hordak_ ** do?” The feline clenches her hands in a fist, trying not to sound as angry as she actually is.

"Hordak?" Entrapta looks at Catra again, a bit surprised now. "How did you know it was him?" She asks, genuinely not understanding how her friend found out so fast.

"W-what?" Catra steps back, not prepared for that question. For a moment, even her anger fades away in total disbelief. "Who else could it be?!" She places the palm of her hand over her face. "Sometimes it's easy to forget the genius you actually are." She whispers to herself before taking a deep breath and pinching her nose. "Let's start it again…" The feline stares at Entrapta. "What did Hordak do?" She crosses her arms, waiting for an answer.

"He lied to me and helped people. But you probably already know about his missions around Etheria to help our friends’ kingdoms.” Entrapta shrugs, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

“He what?!” Catra shouts, totally surprised and shocked in ways that she didn’t even know were possible. 

“Oooh…” Entrapta slides her mask up for a minute to look directly at her friend. “You didn’t know…” She puts her mask over her face again. “That explains why you didn’t try to stop him.” The princess crosses her arms. “I thought I was the only one who didn’t know.”

“No one told you your alien boyfriend was rebuilding Etheria?” Catra raises an eyebrow. “Not even Scorpia?”

“He is not my boyfriend…” Entrapta says while blushing really hard underneath her mask. “He is my lab partner and my friend, totally different things that don’t qualify him as my boyfriend.” The scientist says, placing a hand above her mask, as if she wanted to make sure it was actually there. "But, no, no one told me. Not Scorpia, nor W.H., nor Perfuma, not even Hordak himself.” The princess sighs. “I believe I misunderstood my relationship with Hordak and that is why things ended up like this." She grabs her mask tighter, trying to bring herself to tell Catra what she is really feeling, however, she doesn't feel comfortable enough to do that right now. "I think he's just my lab partner now…" She turns around to look at the castle's entrance.

"Well… you are better off without him." Catra says, trying to make her friend see the good side of it. However, it doesn't take much for her to understand that Entrapta doesn't see that as something good, it actually hurts her even more.

"Now you don't have to pretend to like each other." Entrapta gives the feline a sad smile from behind her mask. It is not news to anyone that Catra and Hordak can't be left alone inside the same room without jumping on each other's necks, however, they have always behaved themselves when Entrapta was around, just to make her happy. 

"Entrapta, I'm sorry." Catra scratches the back of her head, looking for the right words to say to her friend. "I know that he means a lot to you." She looks away from the princess. "Even though I don't understand why." She whispers to herself.

"It's okay." Entrapta places a strand of her hair on Catra's shoulder. "It didn't upset me more than Hordak telling me the truth just now." She shrugs before turning around to get inside the castle. "If anyone asks, can you tell them that I will be in my room, hum... studying data?" She shrugs before taking a few more steps. 

"Yes." She nods in agreement before turning around as well. "Are you gonna be alright?"

"Of course." Entrapta chuckles, finding the question funny somehow. "It's not the first time someone upsets me anyway. I will be fine." She says before running inside, not waiting for Catra to answer.

"Okay." She sighs before turning around to go towards the place where Entrapta came from. "Now, let's teach that guy a thing or two." Catra says like a woman on a mission, before marching towards the garden to have a word or two with the one who caused all of that. Hordak. 

Honestly, Catra has been waiting for a long time to find a reason to confront Hordak, one that she could use to justify a fight with him. Knowing that he hurt Entrapta's feelings was just a trigger to the feline's anger and, besides, she has never needed a reason to pick up a fight with her former boss. 

As Catra marches to find Hordak, Entrapta, unaware of what is about to happen outside the castle, locks herself inside her room, where Emily was waiting for her.

“Hi girl.” The scientist waves at her robot before sliding her mask up. “Miss me much?” She asks as she throws herself in bed and grabs her tape recorder to click it on.

"Emotional dilemma number 102? 103?" She closes her eyes for a second, trying to remember it. "103 it is." Entrapta pats the top of Emily by using one of her pigtails before continuing. "First of all, my encounter with Hordak was a disaster. I thought things were going so well between us before he dropped all that information about his work on me." She takes a deep breath. "I am not complaining about the data since I finally found out who was tinkering around my friends' kingdoms, however, I also found out Hordak was lying to me the whole time." The scientist looks at the window of the room. "And he was not the only one…" She closes her eyes, trying to process all her thoughts. "But I am not angry at any of them. I think I am just upset that they kept me out of this…" She plays with one of her gloves. "And I know I am upset because Hordak didn't think I should know about what was going on…" She takes one of her gloves off to look at the scars on the back of her hand, results of uncountable experiments that went wrong. "He didn't want me to know about what he was going through." 

“Perhaps I should have gathered more data before assuming that Hordak wanted to be my life partner.” She says really loud as she points at the ceiling. "Gladly I didn't tell him about my experiment or else things would have been awkward." She puts the glove back on, nervously laughing. "I hate when I am not able to comprehend such emotional matters."

“At least I don't have to worry about telling him about my feelings since I already know that our relationship is limited to just being friends. I was the one who thought it was something else. Perhaps I should start to question my scientific rigor from now on.” She plays with her hair while looking for answers inside her head. "I know, I am not always right, but, this time, there was an experiment and everything." She stares at the tape recorder. "Data never lies!" She crosses her arms before taking a deep breath. "And the personal experiment I was working on for a considerable time gave me reliable data." She rolls her eyes in frustration. "It doesn't make sense." She sighs. "But what does?" She half shrugs. "He didn't trust me enough to share his achievements with me…" She closes her eyes and hides her face behind her hands. "Even our friendship is questionable at this point." She says in a lower tone of voice, almost mumbling. **_"What should I do now?"_ ** She asks herself, already putting aside the possibility of solving her problems, however, a few minutes later, she feels something dropping on her bed before Emily begins to make noises again.

It takes Entrapta a moment to notice that Emily brought her the datapad she was using for her personal experiment with Hordak. "Oh, Emily, I can go over all the data from that experiment, but it won’t change the fact that Hordak doesn’t trust me with his plans nor his problems.” The princess takes a deep breath. "He does not believe that I can keep myself away from tech and I do understand why he thinks that." She grabs the datapad and starts browsing through its information. "However, that is not what hurts me the most." She stops to look at a picture of her and Hordak in front of the Crypto Castle. "What bothers me is that he believes my presence around him threatens how the princesses look at him." She sighs before looking at the tape recorder. "He thinks I can put all his hard work at risk." She places a strand of hair above the picture of the two of them. "Even though he says I am one of the reasons why he is trying to be a better person." She reads through all the data stored in her datapad, analyzing the situation from every possible point of view in order to decide what her next step will be. She spends minutes, hours even, talking to the recorder and registering all her thoughts as if they were all data from a new experiment. It takes her some time, but she is able to find a conclusion, being able to decide her next step. "I get it now." She looks at Emily for the first time in hours. "Emotional dilemma solved." She turns off the tape recorder before she hears someone knocking on the door.

"Entrapta?" Scorpia calls the scientist from outside the room. "Are you still in there?"

"Yes?" Entrapta shouts while using one of her pigtails to open the door. "What is it?" She asks her friend after sliding her mask down over her face. 

"Well…" Scorpia scratches the back of her head, not sure if Entrapta is angry at her or not. She didn’t look angry, but Scorpia never saw Entrapta really angry to tell the difference. "I know it is late, but I came here to apologize." Scorpia finally says.

“Why do you need to apologize?” Entrapta tilts her head to the side, looking confused for a second. “Ooh, you mean because all of you kept secrets from me and tried to keep me away from tech because Hordak asked you all to do it?” She grins. “I get it.”

“You do?” Scorpia raises an eyebrow, bewildered.

“Of course.” The princess lifts up her mask all of a sudden to reveal a smile. “You were being nice to him.” She places a hand aboves her chest. "It makes me happy to see him getting along with my friends." Entrapta places her hands on her crossed legs. "But, next time, you guys should find another way to help him." She looks away from the other princess to look at the data pad in front of her. "I don't like to feel that I was left out. I have been through that before and it doesn't make me feel... happy."

“I am so sorry." Scorpia places both her pincers over her mouth. "I didn't want you to feel this way. I am sure none of us did." The white haired princess shakes her pincers in front of her body. "We were helping Hordak because we thought his intentions were good.” She rubs the back of her neck. “My stars, he wanted to do this for you, to see you happy. He didn't want you to feel upset." She walks towards the bed, sitting next to Entrapta. 

"I understand that." She slides her mask down over her face again. "But it doesn't change the fact that he lied to me." Entrapta sighs.

"I think you should know that we gave Hordak a chance because we can see that he is trying to change." Scorpia gives her engineer friend a reassuring smile. "He is working to become someone better."

"But I don't want him to be better! I don't want him to change..." A soft smile shows up on her face under the mask. "His imperfections are beautiful and I like him just the way he is." She plays with her hair while Scorpia watches her for a moment. 

After listening to what Entrapta just said, Scorpia remembers the time Hordak talked to her about those exact same words. It happened three months ago, on a day Scorpia went to visit Perfuma and Hordak was waiting for his meditation session with the flower princess. It was one of those times Hordak would go to Scorpia for emotional advice.

"You keep going back to that crystal a lot." Scorpia said all of a sudden, changing the subject of their conversation. "Why?"

"I am not discussing this with you." He turned his face away from Scorpia, trying to avoid that conversation. 

"Come on, Hordak. I am here to help you." Scorpia pointed at him.

"I thought you were here to see Perfuma." Hordak looked at the flower princess, who was a few meters away from them, talking to a few citizens of her kingdom.

"That too…" Scorpia blushed a little bit before shaking her head in order to focus again. "Look, let's start from the beginning." She took a deep and long breath. "Why don't you want her to be physically here to support you?" Scorpia asked, trying to understand Hordak. "She is not going to try to stop you and, if you need her help, you know Entrapta will be thrilled to give you a hand." 

Hordak frowned at the princess and crossed his arms, deciding to not say a word for as long as he could. However, Scorpia was persistent as well and kept staring at him until the former lord rolled his eyes and gave up, deciding to answer her question. 

"I have to do this without Entrapta." He met eye to eye with Scorpia.

"Well, you could ask her to just watch and be there for you" The princess gave a half smile, which Hordak rolled his eyes for.

"If you truly believe Entrapta of Dryl would see a great amount of technology and just sit there, watching someone else tinker with it, clearly you are not familiar with her the way I thought you were." Hordak gave her a tired sigh.

"I know she loves tech, believe me, we all know." Scorpia chuckled. "But, maybe, if you talked to her about how you feel, she would understand…" She gave him a half shrug. "All you need to do is open up a bit."

"The problem is not just the tech." Hordak took a deep breath. "And that is why I can't bring myself to talk to her about this subject yet." He buried his face between his hands. "I feel guilty for lying about my trips to Entrapta, but I can't look her in the eyes and say that I didn't want her to know because she would want to help and her help would make a difference in the other princesses' eyes." He sighed. "And, besides that, if I told her I didn't need her help in this. She would insist and say that everybody needs help sometimes."

"Isn't that true?" Perfuma, who was just passing by, interfered. "Aren't your brothers helping you?" She gave a significant gaze at Scorpia. "Aren't we helping you to find answers to your problems?" She looked at him again.

"Yes, but-" Hordak desperately tried to explain himself, but Perfuma was faster than him.

"Entrapta is right." The flower princess placed her hands on her waist and challenged Hordak to say otherwise.

"I know!" He finally gave up and looked away from his meditation instructor. "I am well aware that Entrapta is right, most of the time." He took a long breath.

"Good." Perfuma smiled. "I'm gonna prepare some tea." She said as she left the other two alone again.

"Sorry about that." Scorpia finally said once Perfuma was no longer around. "She is just overwhelmed because Entrapta gave her a really hard time when she visited last week. Everyone wants you to tell her already." She chuckled. "I am not the only one who keeps saying it." 

"I want to tell her everything." Scorpia recalls that he looked like he was still trying to understand everything himself. "But there are other things I have to do first." He stood up and looked at his crystal. "Entrapta said that my imperfections are beautiful, so, when the time comes, I hope she will be able to understand why I did things like this." He placed a hand on the crystal above his chest before leaving Scorpia.

Back then Scorpia didn't understand what Hordak meant with those words, however, now she gets it.

"That is why I didn't understand it." Scorpia tells herself.

"Didn't understand what?" Entrapta stops her line of thinking to pay attention to Scorpia, who finally decided to talk again.

"What Hordak meant when he said that you would understand why he did things this way. It had something to do with the imperfection thing." The scorpion princess points at the other princess. "And you just said the same thing he did."

"That is what I told him back when we were working on the portal machine." Entrapta scratches the top of her head as she tries to connect that new information to the ones she already has. However, it doesn't take too long for her to reach the same conclusion from before.

Now, all she has to do is talk to Hordak about her discoveries. 

"Do you happen to know where my lab partner is?" Entrapta looks at her friend again. "I need to talk to him."

"I do happen to know." Scorpia looks away from Entrapta for a moment, looking for the best way to tell her friend the bad news.

"So? Where is he? It's important." Entrapta stands up and places both her hands on her waist. 

"I know it is, but he is probably not available at the moment." Scorpia stands up as well. "You see, he is inside an infirmary room, hopefully conscious by now." 

"What?" The scientist asks, confused. "What happened to him?"

"He was attacked." Scorpia takes a long breath before continuing. "Catra found him outside the castle."

"Catra did it?" Entrapta takes a step back, really worried. Already jumping to the worst case scenario.

"No…" Scorpia sighs. "Catra's anger got out of control because Hordak didn't want to fight her back, making Melog knock him out as a response to her feelings." She shrugs. "You could call it an accident."

"I need to see him." Entrapta says while running towards the door, not waiting for Scorpia to say anything else. 

The scientist runs as fast as she can to find the infirmary, for which she gladly knew the location thanks to the tour she had in the morning. She wouldn't tell Scorpia, but at the moment she heard he was attacked, she felt her heart sink. Even after everything that happened, she still cared about him because, at last, she finally understood him.

"Hordak?" She calls him once she gets to the first room she can find inside the infirmary. 

"Entrapta?" Hordak, who has just woken up, asks, trying to decide if he is really talking to the princess or if that is the result of a really bad concussion. 

"Are you alright?" She asks as she takes a few steps towards him, still keeping a considerable distance between them. "I know it is really late, but I heard about what happened."

"I won't say I was the victim in this particular situation since Catra was partially right." He touches the back of his head, feeling a lot of pain in the process. "Even though she didn't know the whole story."

"What do you mean?" Entrapta raises an eyebrow. “I kinda told her what happened between us. I thought that was enough data for her.” She places a finger under her chin. “I never thought she would go and confront you about it nor that Melog would attack you.” 

"She was angry for a few reasons... The fact that no one told her about what I was doing in their kingdoms was one issue, but the fact that she also thought they told Adora and Adora didn't tell her was the trigger to make her cat attack me, besides the fact that I didn’t want to fight her back.” Hordak takes a deep breath. “Then it began.” Hordak closes his eyes to control the pain growing on the back of his head. "You know how she feels about my presence around you and your friends."

"That explains why she didn't talk much about it earlier..." Entrapta whispers to herself before looking at the data pad on her hands.

"Entrapta…" Hordak calls her out of her thoughts. "You don't have to be in my presence if you don't feel comfortable to do so. I am alright, you don’t have to worry nor blame yourself."

"I know." The princess gives him a half smile. "But the thing is…" She takes a step forward. "I was going to look for you even before I knew you were here." She crosses her arms. "We need to talk to each other, but you know that I am not good at this." 

"Neither am I." Hordak chuckles. "However, I believe that is the explanation to why we can understand each other." He moves aside on the bed, indicating that she can sit next to him, if she wants to.

"Yes…" Entrapta smiles at his words, believing that to be true, just as he does. "But, well, about why I was going to look for you." She takes a deep breath before grabbing her data pad with a lock of hair to look at the information she has. "In the past few hours I have been analyzing all the data I had about us." She plays with her gloves, wondering if he would find that data as fascinating as she does.

"Data about us?" He raises a brow, curious about what she has to say about it. However, he is not surprised since it actually makes a lot of sense to him that Entrapta collected data about them.

"Remember that personal experiment I told you a long time ago?" She gazes at him for a couple of seconds. "The one you asked about back when we were building the power source for the teleportation device."

"I recall." He runs his hand through his hair just like Entrapta did back then. "Was that an experiment about you and me?" He asks trying to understand how that could give her data about them.

"It started as an experiment to collect data about how far our physical contact could go without making either of us feel uncomfortable…" She smiles at the memories from back then, reminding herself of the first time Hordak kissed her cheek. "But then it became something else." The princess chuckles. Memories like that one always made her happy. "I started to think that, maybe, I could collect data about our relationship in general. That is how I was able to finally come to a conclusion about us and about you." Entrapta walks until she stops right next to the bed. 

"It's funny because I have always known you were like this. I think I just forgot about it after all that happened since the invasion and that is why it took me so long to understand what happened earlier today." The technician looks at his bruised hand, wondering if she should take it or not. "I know you were scared of failing and I know that you still are, even if not as much as you were before." She finally decides and holds his hand. "And I also ignored the fact that you have always done everything on your own before I came by. Those are the imperfections you were talking about before I left you in the garden, but I didn't realize what that meant until a couple of minutes ago." 

"And you say you are not good at this." He closes his eyes, letting a smile show up on his lips, relieved that she was able to understand him even in a time like this. Even when he betrayed her trust.

"I just used a scientific method and a lot of data I had." The princess shakes her head gently. "I didn't do it like other people would do… I don't follow my common sense like others. I follow data!" She points at her data pad.

"And that is one of the imperfections I find in myself from time to time." The former lord tells her before squeezing her hand gently, receiving a smile from Entrapta in return. "I apologize, Entrapta, for what I did to you." He takes a deep breath before continuing. "I shall never hurt your feelings again."

"You know, Hordak, it did hurt me, more than you probably think, when I found out you didn't want me around to help, but I understand why you did things like you did." Entrapta looks at the bed and uses her hair to lift herself up so she can sit next to him. "You were scared of losing the progress you had made with the princesses because of me and you were scared I wouldn't accept the person you had become after being freed from your past." She gazes at him. 

"Will you mind if I ask what do you think about our friendship at the moment?" Hordak says, feeling the weight of that question inside of his chest.

"No, I won't mind at all." The princess says as she looks into his eyes again. "I actually gave some thought to it in the past few hours."

"So, Entrapta…" Hordak clears his throat, trying to make the words get out of his mouth. "Do you believe there is anything that can be done about our friendship now?" He looks away from her before getting his hand away from her and asking Entrapta a painful question. "Do you honestly believe that we can resume our friendship after I completely disrespected the trust you put in me?" 

"You are not the first friend who lied to me." The technician shakes her head gently. "Take Catra, for example. She almost got me killed, but we are good friends now." She shrugs. "The lies you told me won't be the end of our friendship." She takes her data pad to have something to distract her from the seriousness of the conversation. "But they were almost the end of any other potential relationship we could have in the future." Entrapta makes a serious face unintentionally as she browsers through the photographs of her experiments inside her data pad.

"I imagined that was a possibility." Hordak swallows hard, uneasy about where that conversation is going. 

"And you still kept doing it." Entrapta rolls her eyes. "Sometimes I wonder what goes on inside that brain of yours, Hordak." She looks at him for a brief moment before getting back to her photographs. "I hate when I am not able to understand such emotional matters." She sighs before continuing to tell him her opinions. "Anyway… if you are worried about our friendship, you don't have to be. I am still your friend." She lets a gentle smile show up on her face. "And your lab partner, even though I am not sure if you still want to be mine since you did enjoy working all by yourself again."

"I see that my behavior brought you to such a conclusion, however, I would like to let you know that I intend to make up for my flagrant breach of conduct and I also intend to continue to be your lab partner for as long as you need me.” He looks away from her, clearly ashamed of himself and his actions.

"Well, I am willing to accept that… because you mean a lot to me on a personal level. But, for that to happen, we need to make an agreement." She places a strand of hair on his shoulder, making him look at her.

"What do you propose?" He holds her gaze, ready to agree to whatever she has to say.

"I know it will seem like demands, but I am gonna tell you what needs to be done to make our friendship stable again. I can show you all the charts later, if you want to check my research.” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “First of all, you have to promise me you won't keep me out again." Entrapta plays with a strand of her hair while looking at her data pad. "I don't care if you lie to anyone else as long as you don't lie to me... I want us to be honest to each other." She takes a deep breath. "And I know it seems a lot to ask from a lab partner, but since we are gonna live together, I think that is fair." She places a finger on her chin. "But, more than anything else, I want you to share your burdens with me, if you feel comfortable enough to do it." She rests her head against his shoulder very carefully, still not a hundred percent sure if she should be doing it. "I know I am not always good at understanding others." She closes her eyes slowly before holding his hand tight. "But I will do my best to understand you." 

"Entrapta…" He lifts her chin with two of his fingers to look into her eyes. "I promise to be the one you can always rely on and the one who will be honest with you at all times." He touches the necklace above his chest. "However, before I say anything else… you said you had data from an experiment about our relationship?" He raises a brow. 

"Yes." She looks away from his eyes for a brief moment. "I was collecting it to define our relationship since I was confused about what we were." She uses a strand of hair to hold his necklace. "We have been through so many things that it is hard to keep up with the change of events." She giggles. 

"Agreed." He places a hand gently against her cheek, which she accepts immediately, placing a strand of hair above his hand. “And what was the conclusion of that experiment?” 

“Well, when I left you in the gardens, I came to the conclusion that we were supposed to be just lab partners because you didn't trust me with your problems nor your achievements, however, before all that happened, I was sure we could be…" Entrapta takes a deep breath, trying to gather the courage to say those two precious words. The words she has been thinking about since she started all that experiment. "...life partners." She tries to hide her face behind her long strands of hair because of the blush showing up on her cheeks. Sure her mask was an option, but she wants to avoid it as long as she can while being around Hordak. "Data never lies." She says at last, meeting his eyes once again.

"And, now, after all of it, what is your conclusion?" He asks with his heart full of hope, after noticing that she didn’t talk about the present, however, his mind is full of doubts as well.

"You always notice, don’t you Hordak?” Entrapta gives him a soft smile before taking a long breath. “Well, after studying and analyzing the situation for endless hours…" She moves closer to him, closing the distance between their bodies. "I concluded that we should continue living our lives as we were doing before today." She says, making Hordak's hope start to fade away. "But, this time…” The princess begins, making his heart beat faster. “With no more secrets." She uses a lock of hair to touch his cheek. "No more hiding." She moves her head closer to him, pressing her forehead against his. "And with you and me, staying by each other's side as partners."

"Lab partners?" He asks, whispering to her as his heart began to grow full of hope again. 

"Yes, but also…" She closes her eyes to focus only on his breathing. "We could try to be something else." 

“You are planning something.” He smiles brightly at her, one of those smiles that were rarely seen on Hordak's face. 

"Well..." She grins at him, trying not to show all her excitement. “Catra told me this afternoon that she thought you were my boyfriend.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” He asks, genuinely clueless about what that is or how it is supposed to work.

“You see…” She rubs the back of her neck, trying to find the best way to describe it. “It means that you would be my partner, but not just my lab partner, we would share much more than just experiments and data. We would share our interests, our emotions, our secrets, our achievements and lots of other aspects of life.” She lets a shy smile show up on her face. “You could say that we would be like life partners.”

“But isn’t that basically what we were doing until now? Of course… besides the whole sharing secrets part of it.” Hordak scratches the back of his head, finding himself lost in that conversation.

“In a manner of speaking… yes.” Entrapta places her hands together, trying to keep her thoughts also together, preparing herself for what she is about to say. “I mean, I even asked you to move in with me… but we never officialized anything and there are all the romantic aspects of it that we never discussed-”

“You are talking about a romantic relationship, aren’t you?” Hordak interrupts her before she starts to blush even more. “I understand what that is, I just never heard the term ‘boyfriend’ until now.” He chuckles. 

“Yes… that is what I am talking about.” She gives him a gentle laugh before gazing at his eyes. “What do you say? Or do you think I am rushing things? I mean, we just rearranged our friendship.” She moves away from him, starting to panic for a moment. “Maybe I did rush into this whole boyfriend thing.” She shakes her hands in front of his face. “Just forget about what I just said-” He interrupts her by holding both her hands and putting them down slowly.  
  


“I believe I have been your unofficial… boyfriend for a long time, Entrapta.” Hordak gives her a soft smile.

“You…” She jumps on him before hugging him tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t believe I had the right to tell such a thing before being completely honest with you.” He says, ignoring the pain in his whole body as Entrapta hugged him tight. “Wouldn’t it be even more selfish on my part?” He hugs her back.

“Yes, but it would have helped with my experiment big time.” She rests her head against his shoulder. “Does this mean we are officially in a romantic relationship?” She moves herself to look at his eyes.

“I do not oppose that idea since it is something both of us want to do.” He places a hand against her face, caressing her cheek with his thumb and giving her comfort, assuring her that they are in this together. 

“I will give all of me to this relationship then.” She gives him a big smile. 

“I will also do the same.” He holds her hand and gazes at her gloves for a long time with a shy smile on his face.

“Hordak?” Entrapta calls him out of his thoughts.

“Thank you, Entrapta.” He finally says before looking into her magenta eyes. “For giving me another chance.” He says before she gently places her hand on his cheek and answers him with only a soft smile.

“Now!” She suddenly says really loud, making Hordak jump on his seat. “I have lots of things that I wanted to share with you earlier today before our problems began and I also have lots of questions about the tech you used here in the Scorpion Kingdom.” Entrapta tells him while looking for her notes inside her data pad to show him.

“I am available to answer all your questions and also glad to be able to hear about your own discoveries.” He says while resting his back against the pillow on the bed.

“Great, now…” She grins before bombarding him with questions, but it was not like he wasn't happy with that. He is more than glad to be able to do such a thing with her again after all that happened between them. 

And he is ready to do it for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! How are you all doing?  
> Sorry for the long wait!  
> Like I said last time, conflict between Hordak and Entrapta is hard for me to write and it was also really hard to write them making amends.  
> I really had a bad writer's block with this chapter.  
> But, gladly, everything worked out as it should.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it.  
> Thanks for reading!  
> Comments are always appreciated!  
> Sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes.
> 
> Next time we will all see each other in Dryl.
> 
> I hope to see you there on the next chapter!


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